LE MIEN, LA MIENNE, LES MIENS, LES MIENNES (Ceci n’est pas une leçon de grammaire.)

As you can see from the illustrations for the cards, “prof de français” and “cheveux”, the ostensible goal of this game is to guess the mystery word(s) given the fewest number of clues possible. In point of fact, however, it is to motivate students to talk about their immediate environment in the target language. The focus of the deck is the world of school but there are just enough cards on more general topics to keep things interesting.

EXTENDING THE LESSON

There are 120 cards in this deck. To extend the lesson and to create a new deck, distribute two or three blank cards to each of your students and challenge them to write in their own “mots devinettes”.

NOTES

1
Although I designed these cards on a printable business card template - 10 per sheet - you can also run them on card stock and cut them along the guidelines.

2
Tailor the deck for use by younger or less advanced students by culling the more abstract concepts like “avenir” and “style”.

3
I’ve offered a handful of expressions in both European and Canadian French. The Canadian French vocabulary is marked with a small maple leaf.