Looks like distance learning will be more and more common regardless of the reasons for adopting it. So I thought you might like a post with ideas for French distance learning games.
You might be looking for ideas so that your French online lessons are not always the same.
Perhaps you want something to start or end lessons with.
Or maybe you’d like your students to be speaking more.
So, in this post, I’ll list 3 French distance learning games that work well for live online lessons.
French Distance Learning Games
These are games that you and your students probably know all too well, but having ideas in one place comes in handy when you can’t think of something fun and different to do.
I’ll list the games and I’ll also add details and suggestions on how to make them work better for distance learning.
I’m assuming you’re using some form of live video communication program, such as Zoom or Skype.
While being able to share your screen is ideal, you can also use a mini whiteboard or a tablet/laptop instead.
So, let’s go?
French Distance Learning Game: 20 Questions
As you know, the point of this game is for students to guess something you’re thinking about by asking “yes or no” questions, up to 20 of them.
So you’d say: “I’m thinking about an animal (or anything else). Ask me questions to find out what animal it is. You can only ask yes or no questions.”
Your students could ask: “Est-ce un petit animal?”, “Est-ce un mammifère?”, “Est-ce que cet animal peut voler?”, etc.
They shouldn’t ask questions like “Est-ce un poisson ou un oiseau?” because that’s not a question you can answer with a “yes” or a “no”.
This is a great way to start or finish an online lesson.
As a starter, it warms them up with a speaking activity.
As a lesson capper, it’s a fun and meaningful way to review vocabulary they practiced that day.
When I play this game, the most time-consuming aspect is coming up with ideas for the “secret” word without repeating myself.
Here are some categories you can pull words from to play the game:
- fruits
- vegetables
- forest/sea/farm/zoo animals
- classroom objects
- places in the city
- professions
- rooms of the house and house objects
- fairy tale characters
- things you can find at the park/circus/supermarket/other places
- feelings
- articles of clothing
- sports
- body parts
- cities and countries
- action verbs, and so on.
Download my free vocabulary sheets (les lexiques) and pick a word from the cards for your students to guess.
TIP: introduce, review, or practice making questions before playing this game.
DO: play 3 times at the most per lesson and make sure every student gets a chance to ask at least one question.
DON’T: choose difficult words or vocabulary from topics that you’re not currently teaching or haven’t taught or discussed recently. Think of this more like a review game.
DO: close the activity by asking students questions about the “mystery word” after they guess what it is. For example, if your word is “une pomme” and your students have guessed it, don’t just end the game there. Be sure to ask questions like “Qui aime manger des pommes?”, or “Quels mots peut-on utiliser pour décrire cette pomme?”(while showing the apple to them). This adds “closure” to the task.
READ: French Phonics Boom Cards
READ: French Sight Words Boom Cards
French Distance Learning Game: Tic-Tac-Toe | Le morpion
Well, this game needs no introductions and kids love to play it.
The trick is to get a lot of language practice out of it.
You might be saying: “But, wait Lucy, how?”
Here’s how to play it so you can get lots of language practice (particularly speaking practice) from Tic-Tac-Toe.
First, number each square from 1 to 9.
Each square presents students with a question that they need to answer before winning the square and that question can be anything you want them to practice.
For example:
- Do you want kiddos to practice vocabulary words?
So each square is a word that they need to use in a sentence. Pick words from a theme you’ve taught recently.
- Would you like them to work with verbs?
Then, each square is a verb and a pronoun that they need to, again, use in a sentence. You can have them conjugate the verbs in a verb tense you’ve practiced lately.
- Maybe you need them to work on a specific sentence structure, like making questions?
Okay, then each square is an affirmative sentence that they need to transform into an interrogative phrase. This one needs a little prep because you need to put together a list of sentences beforehand.
- Want to check on their understanding of a book you’ve read or a video you’ve watched recently?
Make questions about that topic and have kids answer them.
The possibilities are just endless! I literally could go on and on…
On Zoom/Skype/Google Meets, you can show them a mini whiteboard where you draw the game, or you can share your screen and have the game in PowerPoint or Google Slides, but I like things pretty, so I put together a FREE deck of Boom Cards with manipulative Tic-Tac-Toe pieces.
THERE ARE NO QUESTIONS in this deck of Boom Cards, just the game pieces so you can play tic-tac-toe with your students. YOU will be the one moving the pieces and showing the board to them over the camera or by screen sharing.
That’s why you need to be able to either share your screen with the cards on it, or have a tablet you can show your kiddos during the lesson.
This is a great opportunity to get them to tell you (speaking opportunity here!) where they want you to place the crosses and noughts.
TIP: when teaching a group of students, divide them up into 2 teams and have the members of each team take turns choosing the square and answering the question. When a student answers the question correctly, have ALL the members of their team repeat the answer aloud in order to win the square. That way everyone will be speaking more during class 😉
DO: have a list of words, sentences, or questions ready to go before playing the game.
DON’T: forget to have at hand the Boom Cards manipulative or a mini whiteboard or a flipboard or anything else that can be shown to your students and keep track of the game.
French Distance Learning Game: Making lists
I can hear you say: “Hold on, Lucy, now making lists is NOT a game.”
True, but you can make kids believe that ANYTHING is a game as long as you give points for correct answers!
To play this, students will need something to write on.
And here’s how to play this:
- Choose a category. For example, fruits.
- Tell students they have 30 seconds (or any time limit you decide on) to write as many fruit names as possible.
- When time’s up, ask each student to read a word from their list, one student at a time.
- When a student says a word, ask other students if they wrote the same word down. If anyone did, everybody who wrote that word gets 1 point. If they spelled it correctly, they get another point.
- In case the student says a word that nobody else wrote down, that student gets 3 points, and 2 extra points if the words is spelled correctly.
Again, you can use the categories from the FREE “lexiques” file for ideas and the list in the first bullet of this post.
TIP: if your students like the “game” and they do well with competition, you can create a leaderboard and keep track of their points and offer them prizes for being the top 3 of the month, or for scoring more than a certain number of points a week.
DO: define the number of rounds you’ll be playing during class and stick to it because your students need routine.
DON’T: forget to make it relevant by using categories related to what you’re currently teaching or have recently taught.
Hope you and your students have fun playing these French distance learning games!
Thank you for stopping by.
Merci!
Lucy
READ: Teaching students to stretch sentences
READ: Vocabulary time-fillers
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