A miming and verb manipulation task

In this low prep communicative task students have some fun miming everyday activities using high frequency language, while their partner has to use the verb involved in a different tense. It would be a good idea to model the task first, before pairs start to talk. Only do this if you know your class can manipulate common verbs in three time frames - so this may suit a Y10-11 class, or a very good Y9 (low intermediate). If your class needs vocab support display some of the words you see used in the list below.

Here is a list you can hand out to partner A of possible sentences to mime:

Je joue au foot

Je joue au tennis de tables

Je joue au golf

Je joue au tennis

Je joue au basket

Je joue au volley

Je joue à des jeux vidéo

Je joue de la trompette

Je joue du piano

Je joue de la guitare

Je joue de la flûte

Je joue aux cartes

Je joue aux échecs

Je fais du dessin

Je fais de la gymnastique

Je fais la vaisselle

Je fais du ski

Je fais du jogging

Je lis

J'écoute de la musique

etc etc (there are loads more you could come up with).

After each mime, partner A gives a time phrase prompt, after which partner B has to describe what the partner has done, is doing, or will do. To do this they will need the "tu" form of the verb., so will say things like tu joueras au foot, tu as fais du ski, tu mangeras une pomme.

Prompts can be displayed on the board.

Present

En ce moment, maintenant, d'habitude, normalement

Past

Hier, le weekend dernier, hier matin, il y a trois jours, samedi derneir

Future

Demain, dans trois semaines, après-demain, ce soir, le mois prochain

Voilà! The rationale for this task should be obvious. Students get to use high frequency language, think about verb formation and have a little fun in the process. To wind up the task you could do some of your own, asking students to tell you using the "vous" form of the verb - something they rarely, if ever, get to do.