All Sorts of Activities for Levels 1 and 2

  La Francophonie

What better way to motivate younger learners but to introduce them to the variety of places and people who speak French? Philippa Kruger (St Hilda's Collegiate School) has created an activity outline to research a country where French is one of the official languages.
The project outline includes Project Guidelines, a time scale, a planning sheet and it highlights some Key Competencies involved in this task.
The project culminate to a class exhibition and prize giving. An effective way to finish off a year's work and to introduce a range of cultural concepts.

Bingo Game: Parts of the Body

Heidi Schreiber (Craighead Diocesan School) has kindly shared this activity. Here is Heidi's description:
This Bingo game is fun and should help students learn the parts of the body. Make a set of picture cards for each student. There are 24 boards, each with a different arrangement of words. The students must cover the word with the picture when that word is called out. The words include the following vocabulary: la jambe, la bouche, les dents, le corps, le pied, l'epaule, une oreille, les cheveux, le cou, la langue, le ventre, la tête, le dos, les yeux, la main, le nez, le bras, les doigts (the pic with the fingers crossed).
A fun version of the game is to put the cards at the opposite end of the room. This means that the students have to run (or walk quickly) to fetch the card each time. Good exercise and they have to remember the word and identify it!

Pic by Helga Weber, with thanks.

How do you know what you know? A metacognition Template

A resource shared by

Vir Obscurus on TES July 2011

and this is the description provided:

"I use this a lot when it comes to revision. The idea is pinched from Anne Swarbrick who, I believe, pinched it from Norway where English learners regularly test themselves using the 4 proofs of knowledge - you ‘know’ a word in a FL when you can i) pronounce it properly, ii) spell it correctly, iii) translate it into the mother tongue, and iv) use it in a sentence so it makes sense. This is an example from our Y7 SoW based on Avantage Module 2 - Toi et Moi. The 4 tests are colour-coded, and it all works very well with ‘show me’ mini-whiteboards for the pupils. Feel free to adapt it to any topic, any year group, any language"

Pic by Picdrome.com, with thanks

Around the House

Students wanted to find out about words and phrases to describe their home and Florence Lyons (Matamata College) made up a concise summative test with a listening and a reading activity to see how much they remembered. A short little test that can be used after students have researched a list of words to describe their home.

French Words used in English

Rachel McDonald (South Otago High School) has compiled a list of French words used commonly in English and given them a definition.  Rachel suggests to organise students in teams, maybe for the first class. Either project the French words on the board or give students a list to cut out or copy onto card. Then you read out the description of the word and the first team to hold up the right answer wins.

  Learning Languages Waikato Wiki.  Discover a range of Resources to download for NZC Levels 1 and 2 as well as a range of theoretical and methodological resources.

Toupty.com is more than just an other French website for 3 to 10 years old: its Lettres pages offer two sections Abécédaire and Mots Croisés, which are a great opportunity for second language learners to acquire plenty of basic vocabulary, nicely illustrated. It makes for a great relief activity if computers are available.

Tête à Modeler is a French website which offers plenty of downloadable, printable activities for French youngsters.  It offers a wealth of project activities, as well as concise, easy to understand "Dossiers" on topic such as Health, Environment, General Knowledge etc. and great easy recipes! Here, that's a homework idea!

10 Songs from the BBC Primary French Website

Click on the link above to access 10 online songs (Numbers, What's this? Where do you live etc) all relevant to the teaching of French at L1&2.  Short and repetitive, the songs are presented as a karaoke to make them even more interactive.

Visit the Hugo l'Escargot website where you will find a wide array of activities to carry out with your younger students. William Jennings (University of Waikato) suggested this website as a reply to a post on the listserve.   Coloring in ,  Classic French Children songs, cut outs , a wide range of free online games ... there is plenty to keep the young ones (and the older too!) busy.

►La France

►Countries and Flags

►La France - an easy general knowledge quiz that can be completed by looking at a map.

10 Online Games from the BBC Primary French Website

Have your students covered all the basics at Level 1? Have they enjoyed the Karaoke (10 songs, see above)? They will continue to learn and reinforce their vocab with any of these 10 online games, which also include Days of the Week, Alphabet and Sounds, Age and more.

Hilary de Joux (Nelson College for Girls) has put together a Speaking activity: After just a few weeks of learning French, students get together with a partner and create an identity for themselves, write a conversation with what they've learnt so far, then go onto recording and saving it on a computer.

30 Question Junior French Quiz

Here is a quiz Sonia Slade (Dilworth Junior Campus) created for her Years 7 and 8. Her inspiration came from Julia Brown's quiz which Sonia has adapted for younger students. This quiz can be used as a motivator at anytime to involve students into some quick research on anything "French" while promoting a healthy level of competition amongst them! For a Senior version of the Quiz go to:

50 Question French Quiz 

La Marseillaise pour les Juniors!

Sonia Slade (Dilworth Junior Campus) has compiled and shared a document based on the lyrics of La Marseillaise.
The document includes a link to a great clip on Youtube which shows the lyrics of the French National Anthem both in French and in English. Sonia adds that after having spent some time describing how hard the times were before the revolution, thestudents become quite interested in the lyrics and are getting used to the music. After showing them the long version once or twice maximum, Sonia then showed them the short version sung by the French rugby team during their last visit in NZ. (See link at the end of document)

Le Jeu des 5 Gestes

Verna Morris (Dunstan College) was inspired by a game she saw while observing a drama lesson in a French school, and she has shared this activity for you to use at the end of class, for instance. This is a game that can have lots of variations.
The basic idea is that you have 5 sets of little phrases, each of which is accompanied by a French gesture. Read the instructions in the document below and visit french.about.com to discover the Top 10 French gestures!  

Time Fillers and Great Group Activities

This link takes you to a long list of great time fillers to use with  students in the early stages of learning French (Older ones may like them also, just adapt the content or the object!)

Jeopardy Game

Going over concepts covered in the early stages of your Junior programme?  Florence Lyons (Matamata College) has created and shared the Jeopardy game below to revise numbers, greetings, age and classroom instructions, using a PPT presentation.