Plenty of Other Great Activities!

Fortune Teller (or Flip Flops or Cocotte in French)

How to make a Cocotte video

Victoria Faris (Rangitoto College) shares a successful activity:

"We made animal insults for the fortunes written inside our 'flip flops' (obviously we're a no putdown school but these are taken in the ridiculous light they were intended). It appealed to the boys, especially.
The students wrote their own insults by taking one part of the sentence from each column in the table , so they might have '(1)Tu pues comme (2) un cochon (3) qui fait des galipettes' or '(1)Tu manges comme (2) un coq (3) qui lèche son ventre'.
What else can you come up with?

Image: 'construction'

   La Cocotte en Papier

Cleo Lassaube has kindly shared this brilliant activity that can be used with students of all levels and abilities: make a "Cocotte" to go over and use a range of vocab and get talking along the way! The activity is illustrated with the two short videos she created below: one to explain how to make the "Cocotte en Papier" and the second one to illustrate how to use it. 
Cleo describes her activity "This activity allows pupils to use most of the language you have taught them from a unit (certainly all the questions and most of the possible answers). It allows the pupils to get their pronunciation correct, it will also help with the building of their confidence, retention of vocab and the stressing of the salient grammatical features of words. It is very structured as an activity and mostly involves the class repeating phrases in a highly memorable way."
You may start by deciding the questions to include, then show the videos. Once all is clear, why not video your students in action and send it on to feature here?

LearnFrenchVideo

Self paced learning with LearnFrenchVideo.com

It is a huge repository of tutorials covering basic vocabulary words, grammar rules, phrases, verbs and conjugations tables, numbers, pronunciation and songs, basic conversations and much more! Send you students there, and spend classtime using and putting in context. Flipped Classroom? The Khan Academy for French? See what you think.

French through Songs and Singing

All the great French classic songs from young beginners to more advanced in a full multi media site. The new collection made of public domain songs and artists' original with permission. The curator of this site has also included themes, a musical genre glossary and many ideas for the classroom. Well worth a visit for a musical dose of French and French speaking culture.

(Picture The band played on, flickrCC)

Bridget Towey (Manurewa High School) brought our attention again to the very well organised "La Chanson en cours de FLE" and its plethora of activities related to French songs for all levels.

Phrases to facilitate spoken interaction

Initially compiled to help with the introduction of the A.S 1.3 in the original NCEA, the list of phrases you can find in the document below have been put together to help students interact in the classroom with the teacher and amongst themselves. Many of these phrases can be introduced at Junior level as students discover the language and start communicating reusing familiar vocabulary. Why not print this list as a placemat?

Bookmarks

Henriette Tuzzolino (Tikipunga High School) has created the bookmarks you can download below. They look really nice printed in colour and laminated, as end of year / language week prizes or presents for someone's birthday!

Expressions Orales Courantes

Manu Ménard (Saint Matthew's Collegiate) shares the list of phrases he has been collating for a couple of months, which can be useful to all students from yr 9, to improve students interactional level. Students are given the list and highlight the phrases they think can be of use to them and then use them in their conversations. Manu invites feedback and discussion on the listserv and adds "Some of you might disagree with my translations and that's fine. It is just my take of things. I'm not a professional translator. Some of you might not like to see a few swear words and that's fine too, just delete them from your list. When I made this list, I just put myself in the shoes of the students and the kind of language they use".

Dictionnary Skills Activities

The range of worksheets and activities

can be dowloaded and are suitable for a range of levels. They are initially designed to be used with users of the Oxford French Learner's Dictionary, described as "much more than just a one word look up - the Learner's dictionary gives advice, context and tips to support learners both on paper and verbally."

Duck Duck GOOSE! Drilling Structures

Frédéric Dichtel (Aquinas College) has recently introduced the Duck, Duck, GOOSE game to drill grammar structures in particular.
If you are not familiar with the game, you will find a set of rules here.
Fred uses this game to enhance his students' languages skills at any level. Here are some examples he shares:
- Year 11 students can play the game saying, "je dois, je veux, je peux, bonjour" (the student tapped on the head as "bonjour" is uttered becomes the goose)

- In Year 10: "j'aime, j'adore, je déteste"
- In Year 13: "bien que, pour que, pourvu que, quand" etc.
He adds that to allow for a fun game, make sure the circle is wide enough, so the "goose" can have a chance to catch up with the "fox.

Fred wishes to thank his Y10 student Katherine M. for suggesting this game.

The Ashcombe School Videos on Demand

The award winning Ashcombe School (UK) has produced 35 Videos on Demand which cover the whole syllabus (from Beginners to Seniors). The videos function as standalone exercises for anyone who wishes to practise their language skills. Each exercise comprises a video clip of a native speaker, followed by an online, self-checking quiz, together with transcripts in the target language and English.  Watch their website as they are currently developing Iphone French resources!

Before you introduce them to your students, read about the Videos on Demand

Access the 35 Videos from here.

Language Perfect

Language Perfect is a powerful tool for language teachers and their students.
This program provides a fun, effective and rewarding online environment in which students learn and revise key vocabulary It has been created in 2008 by students who have recently completed the NCEA syllabus who strive to produce the ultimate interactive revision tool for French levels 1, 2 and 3.

Listed below are its key features:
Teacher‐created lists – teachers create vocabulary lists for their classes to revise.
Intelligent testing engine – picks up and repeats any words students are struggling with.
Online access – students can use Language Perfect from any computer with Internet Access.
Database connectivity – student progress is stored in our online database.
Sound Files– allow students to hear each word with accurate pronunciation.

Chris Durrant (HoD Languages at Otago High School for Girls) has carried out research into Language Perfect effectiveness for the Ministry of Education.  The results are stunning: they show ALL students who used the online programme have improved their vocabulary and top students report learning vocabulary faster with Language Perfect!  Read below about this research, in an article published in Interface (Feb 2009). 

On rigole!

French expressions and play on words can provide Francophiles with hot topics of conversation but also with a good dose of laughter! Ruth Bourchier (French National Adviser), amongst many, enjoys them very much and she shares two PPT:  the first one picks on a range of expressions (you could use it a slide at a time with your students to instill in them the finer aspects of French!) and the second is a selection of blunders found on exam answers. 

Expressions Idiomatiques

Discover a range of Idiomatic Expressions with illustrations and explanations from bonjourdefrance.com .  Students click  "Voulez vous vous tester?" to access the related self evaluating reading comprehension exercise.

Liaisons or not?

Ruth Bourchier (National French Adviser) casts some light on this tricky point.  The article below is on when and when not to make LIAISONS. It has been adapted from the BBC course ALLEZ FRANCE.

FlashCards, yes, but Online!

Discover the French vocabulary e-flash cards on Quizlet:  Verb conjugations and tenses, Vocabulary on contexts such as Parts of the Body, Food, Pet... Cultural and Historical aspects … Choose a set you want your students to work on, then let them go on to familiarizing themselves with vocabulary, then learning and self testing.  With the option to play word games and combine different lists together.

Vocabulary Building Exercises to support a worthy cause! 

For each answer you get right in this quiz FreeRice gives 20 grains of rice for the UN World Food Program to help end hunger.  Chose your level, start playing,  improve your French and above all help provide food to the hungry.

Online Material to support  Christian Schools' Special Character in French.

Wilda Laux (Sancta Maria College) is sharing the following link to www.croire.com . Wilda teaches at a catholic school, and one of the tasks of each teacher there is to contribute to the special character of the school (catholic spirit). With her classes, she does prayers at the beginning of each class and this website (you get a 15 day trial period) provides quality catholic materials (prayers, readings, life stories....).  Wilda also believes the material can be used in any christian institutions and beyond (wherever you would like to introduce a little something out of the ordinary).

Selection of Quizzes

►Le Millionaire  Seating in the famous Hot Seat! And be a virtual millionaire in Euros!  Online quiz made of questions by members of www.francaisfacile.com You can become a member for FREE and get your students to devise their own questions/answers to submit and add to the bank of questions.

►Fantastic general knowledge quiz and its answers
►French grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension, as well as culture, study habits, and more Quizzes

International Languages Week French Quiz

Julia Brown (Dilworth School) has created and shared the following France General Knowledge Quiz!  A great resource to get your students thinking and researching but also a fantastic way to have fun while your colleagues and friends test their French "culture générale"!Well timed for International Languages Week.

If you want the answers to Julia's 2010 International Languages Week answers, please email Pascale.

Scroll right to the end of the list to find Guillaume Charton (Wakatipu High School) Linguathletics! He has run it as a school competition in 2012 at break time with 125 students involved which is the best way to have them interested about languages while having some fun! Some of the questions come from internet and some need to be adapted so that they are specific to his school. Thanks for sharing!

Selection of Games

►Comprehensive list of Classroom Games

Find below:

1- a list of "games that work"! courtesy of frenchteacher.net

2- Pascale Hyboud-Peron (french.ac.nz Administrator) has tried and tested four activities, some from the above list, with Camella Murrie's (Aquinas College) year 10 class.  The activities are explained in detail, with examples, based on the topic Food and Drink.  All these activities can be adapted: use them as time fillers or as an integral part of your lesson, keep the vocabulary simple for beginners, or make them a practice for more complex grammatical structures.

Example of an adaptation for the "Phrases à Rallonges" with a group of year 12 students to work on 'après+avoir/être+past participle" : start with "après le lycée je vais...", and each student must had a verb.

#1: Après avoir fini le lycée, je vais aller à l'université

#2: Après avoir fini le lycée et réussi mes exams, je vais aller à l'université

#3: Après avoir fini le lycée et réussi mes exams, je vais aller à l'université et je vais étudier l'informatique. Etc.