A few years ago, I retired from my position as head of Modern Languages, a bit fearful of the "R" word. But to date, it has been nothing but fun! Canadian law requires school-aged actors to study with a qualified teacher when they’re off-camera. Many of our young actors are in immersion French so I've found a happy little niche, teaching a few days a week as an on-set tutor and moving in inspiring and creative circles! Furthermore, I get to share resources here! Vive la retraite!
A few years ago, I retired from my position as head of Modern Languages, a bit fearful of the "R" word. But to date, it has been nothing but fun! Canadian law requires school-aged actors to study with a qualified teacher when they’re off-camera. Many of our young actors are in immersion French so I've found a happy little niche, teaching a few days a week as an on-set tutor and moving in inspiring and creative circles! Furthermore, I get to share resources here! Vive la retraite!
Both of the self-correcting games in this file are designed to hone your students’ understanding of les phrases hypothétiques or sentences built around “si” clauses.
GET THE PICTURE? After students have shuffled the 44 cards in this deck and spread them, text side up, on a table, they look for pairs of cards that make logical “phrases hypothétiques”. To check their work, they turn over each set of cards. Matching pictures mean they’ve made the right choices. Pictures that don’t match are gentle encouragements to try again.
The TRIANGLE PUZZLE asks students to align the text printed on the edges of 16 triangles to reconstitute the original hypothetical sentences.
Both of these activities work for independent learning, learning centres and competitive play with a study buddy.
Examples are not repeated in the two games.
Here are three of the “hypothetical” sentences your students will work with:
Quelqu’un qui boit trop d’alcool est alcoolique. Alors si moi, je bois beaucoup de Fanta, JE SERAI FANTASTIQUE, N’EST-CE PAS?
Couche-toi de bonne heure SI TU AS UN EXAMEN DEMAIN.
À mon avis, si Shakespeare vivait aujourd’hui, IL ÉCRIRAIT DU RAP.
You’ll find a simple aide-mémoire at the end of the GET THE PICTURE? file. It reminds students that the tense of the “then” clause depends on the tense of the “if” clause and charts what those tenses are.
This triangle puzzle focusses on the present tense of the irregular verbs, vouloir, pouvoir and devoir. To solve the puzzle co-operatively, students will have to match snippets of text to form sentences like, "Pour jouer à Minecraft, on doit utiliser son imagination" and "Pour voir mes photos, vous pouvez me suivre (folow) sur Instagram".
To make sure this activity is right for your students, test drive another triangle puzzle, the free "futur simple" puzzle: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/le-futur-simple-a-triangle-puzzle-6450469
Because it’s not easy finding French stickers with meaningful captions and because my students are always looking for an excuse to use their cell phones, I decided to tell them, “I think QR doing a good job” using QR codes. The 34 comments I’ve encoded are listed below. See the enthusiastic reaction the codes generate for yourself by attaching one of the QR comments in the preview to your students’ next assignment.
1
Un bel effort!
C’est génial
Très impressionnant!
C’est un bonheur de t’enseigner!
Excellent comme d’habitude!
Chouette! Bien fait!
2
Tu vois? Tu es très capable.
Bravo! Tu réussis haut la main!
Formidable! Tu connais bien tes verbes irréguliers!
Vouloir, c’est pouvoir, n’est-ce pas? Bravo!
Tu fais des progrès!
1, 2, 3 . . . je peux toujours compter sur toi!
3
Je suis content que tu sois dans ma classe!
Je suis contentE que tu sois dans ma classe!
Je suis fier de toi!
Je suis fièrE de toi!
Tu es un éleve de rêve!
Tu es unE éleve de rêve!
4
Je savais que tu y arriverais!
Wow! Je n’aurais pas pu mieux faire moi-même!
Tu as bien réussi cette tâche!
Tu t’exprimes très clairement! Bravo!
Encore un peu et tu l’auras!
J’ai remarqué que tu as vraiment fait de ton mieux aujourd’hui! Je t’en félicite!
5
Tu as écouté très attentivement aujourd’hui.
C’est toute une amélioration! Félicitations!
Ton comportement était exemplaire aujourd’hui! Félicitations!
Viens me voir pour de l’aide supplémentaire.
C’est bien trouvé!
Je t’applaudis!
En récompense de ce travail si bien fait, ce soir tu n’auras PAS DE DEVOIRS!
Il y a 8 phrases cachées dans chaque marelle.
There are eight sentences hidden in each of these two hopscotch games.
Le début de chaque phrase est signalé par un petit numéro qui indique le nombre de cases dans la phrase. Toutes les cases qui forment une phrase se touchent. C’est la logique qui détermine l’ordre à suivre.
The beginning of each sentence is marked with a number in a circle. This little number also tells you how many boxes make up the sentence. All the boxes that form a sentence are connected. You may move up, down, left, right and diagonally. Let logic guide you to the end of each sentence.
Download the free resource, "Une marelle pour accompagner Le Gruffalo” to see if this game is suitable for your class.
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/une-marelle-pour-accompagner-le-gruffalo-11288270
This self-correcting game pinpoints the Times Tables from 2 through 12. Each deck is comprised of 28 cards. Your students will, literally, "get the picture" by multiplying correctly because after they’ve paired up the factor and the product cards, they can turn them over to check their results. Pairs of pictures that don't match flag those operations that need to be tried again.
Because Taming the Times Tables without Tears (GET THE PICTURE?) lends itself to individual practice, it’s ideal for learning centres and for home play. However, once your students have improved their multiplication skills, they can play with two or more decks at once. Or, they can challenge a friend to a multiplication race.
Print the sheets on card stock.
Merry multiplication mastery.
These printable games are self-correcting activities designed to help beginners master the verb endings for RE and IR verbs in the present tense.
To see if these games are right for your students, download the free resource, GET THE PICTURE? (Le présent des verbes ER): https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/get-the-picture-le-pr-sent-des-verbes-er-a-self-correcting-learning-activity-11342123
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.
This bundle includes
1 Où sont les trésors cachés? (Les verbes
conjugués avec ÊTRE/ Dr. & Mrs. VAN
DER TRAMP)
2 Dr. & Mrs. van der Tramp (les verbes
conjugués avec être): a mini-unit
3 Triangle puzzle: Les verbes conjugués
avec être
4 Deux MARELLES Dr. & Mrs. van der
Tramp
5 Jouons du piano (Les verbes conjugués
avec être)
Please note that, until recently, this bundle included my beloved "15 mini-dictées au format QR". But QRvoice.net is having some issues. When / if they are resolved or I create a viable alternative resource, I will be thrilled to reupload mon activité chouchou.
Because it's hard to find big, bright, text-rich, French motivational stickers, I have designed about fifty “reward cards” to encourage and congratulate my students. My kids like them and I like being able to update them as needed. Many sincere thanks to my (much) younger colleague, who gently suggested that I move into this millennium and label this file as “brag tags”!
HOW I USE THEM
1) AS COLLECTIBLES
They work as little giveaway rewards for good effort. (I’m from Canada, hockey trading card country. The best compliment I ever got was when one of my boys announced that he was trying to collect the “whole set”!)
2) AS CURRENCY
Students may trade in 10 cards for a package of gum or a dollar store /pound shop gift.
3) As a “bon point” incentive
A bon point is redeemable for “1 mark on our next test”. Even
high school kids love this little card trick. If you go this route,
reserve two or three styles (for example, the “vachement bien”
and the “de quoi être fier /fière” cards) as the bon point cards.
Challenge your students to use their words with these Christmas, Hannuka, The New Year and Remembrance Day puzzles.
Unlike Scrabble players, Scribblescrabblers can choose which letters to use for each of their turns. As in Scrabble, however, they will score the most points with the strategic placement of those letters.
You may ask your students to incorporate a thematic vocabulary list or to play using general vocabulary only. Either way, they will be engaged! In fact, very competitive students tend to want to play every possible open square.
This file includes English, French and Spanish versions for of each grid and a blank grid for those of you teaching other languages.
Unlike Scrabble players, Scribblescrabblers can choose which letters to use for each of their turns. As in Scrabble, however, they will score the most points with the strategic placement of those letters.
This bundle includes Scribblescrabbles for:
1 Halloween
2 Diwali
3 Eid
4 Remembrance Day
5 Kwanzaa
6 Christmas
7 Hannukah
8 The New Year
9 Martin Luther King Jr. Day
10 Chinese New Year
11 Valentine’s Day
12 Groundhog Day
13 Saint Patrick’s Day
14 Easter
15 Passover
16 Earth Day
17 Thanksgiving
This file includes English, French and Spanish versions for each grid and a blank grid for those of you teaching other languages.
Unlike Scrabble players, Scribblescrabblers can choose which letters to use for each of their turns. As in Scrabble, however, they will score the most points with the strategic placement of those letters.
Download this free Scribblescrabble to see if this activity is right for your students: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/a-scribblescrabble-for-hannukah-6301284
This file includes English, French and Spanish versions of each grid as well as a blank grid for those of you teaching other languages.
Try before you buy. Here is the free "Où sont les trésors cachés? (les verbes ER)"
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/o-sont-les-tr-sors-cach-s-les-verbes-er-6438862
This bundle includes the " Où sont les trésors cachés?" game sheets for
1 les verbes réguliers -IR
2 les verbes réguliers -RE
3 les verbes ER, IR and RE
4 les verbes ÊTRE et AVOIR
5 les verbes DEVOIR, VOULOIR et POUVOIR
6 les verbes FAIRE, PRENDRE, METTRE
7 les verbes SAVOIR, CONNAÎTRE et
RECONNAÎTRE
8 les verbes conjugués avec ÊTRE/ Dr. & Mrs.
VAN DER TRAMP).
9 les verbes PRONOMINAUX
10 les verbes OUVRIR, DÉCOUVRIR, SORTIR
et PARTIR
11 les verbes ER (the original free resource)
Here are all of my French Halloween resources, both paid and free, in one file.
1 DIRE OU INTERDIRE? (Un jeu comme Taboo):
L'édition de Halloween
2 10 French Bingo Cards for Hallowe'en
3 C'est Touchant! (un jeu comme Boggle) pour
L'Automne, L'Action de Grâce, L'Halloween et
L'Hiver
4 Scribblescrabbles for Halloween, Diwali, Thanksgiving, Eid and Kwanzaa (Multilingual)
5 Mots coupés (Halloween) 2.0
You’ll find two new word work puzzles in this file.
1 I know these words backwards and forwards (CHRISTMAS)
The end of every word in this circular puzzle is also the beginning of a new word. The words embedded in the puzzle are:
1 rejoice
2 celebration
3 Noel
4 list
5 stocking
6 gift
7 trim
8 imagine
9 newborn
10 ornament
11 tree
12 eggnog
13 gingerbread
14 advent
15 tinsel
16 elves
17 sleigh
18 holly
19 yuletide
20 decorate
21 eating
22 guest
23 star
24 reindeer
2. Broken Words! (A CHRISTMAS word puzzle)
In this virtual race, players have to reconstitute and recopy words that have been broken into syllables and scattered over the game grid. The words embedded in this puzzle are:
1 chimney
2 stable
3 magi
4 angel
5 holly
6 stocking
7 advent
8 carol
9 manger
10 tinsel
11 infant
12 present
13 joy
N.B. Try before you buy.
Be sure that these activities will be right for your students by downloading their free sister resources:
I know these words backwards and forwards (THANKGIVING) at:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/i-know-these-words-backwards-and-forwards-thanksgiving-11424790
and
Chopped Up Words (A Hallowe'en word puzzle) at:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/chopped-up-words-a-hallowe-en-word-puzzle-11407269
These Scribblescrabbles games are for Valentine’s Day, MLK Day, Chinese New Year & Groundhog Day. English, French & Spanish grids are included as is a blank grid for other languages.
As in Scrabble, students will score the most points with the strategic placement of their letters. Unlike Scrabble players, Scribblescrabblers choose which letters to use for each turn.
You may ask your students to incorporate a thematic vocabulary list or to play using general vocabulary only. Either way, they will be engaged! In fact, very competitive students tend to want to play every possible open square.
Challenge your students to use their words with these puzzles for Saint Patrick’s Day, Easter, Passover and Earth Day.
Unlike Scrabble players, Scribblescrabblers can choose which letters to use for each of their turns. As in Scrabble, however, they will score the most points with the strategic placement of those letters.
You may ask your students to incorporate a thematic vocabulary list or to play using general vocabulary only. Either way, they will be engaged! In fact, very competitive students tend to want to play every possible open square.
This file includes English, French and Spanish versions for of each grid and a blank grid for those of you teaching other languages.
2 Jeux de mots pour Noël (EN COMMENÇANT PAR LA FIN et MOTS COUPÉS)
EN COMMENÇANT PAR LA FIN
The end of every word in this circular puzzle is also the beginning of a new word. The words embedded in the puzzle are:
1 renne (m.)
2 neige (f.)
3 générosité (f.)
4 terre (f.)
5 réveillon (m.)
6 Noël (m.)
7 lutin (m.)
8 invité (m.)
9 étoile (f.)
10 lettre (f.)
11 rêve (m.)
12 vert
13 traîneau (m.)
14 auberge (f.)
15 église (f.)
16 étable (f.)
17 emballage (m.)
18 geler
19 roi (m.)
20 imagination (f.)
21 naître
MOTS COUPÉS
In this virtual race, players have to reconstitute and recopy words that have been broken down into syllables and scattered over the game grid. The words in this puzzle are:
vacances (f.pl.)
sapin (m.)
cadeau (m.)
étoile (f.)
église (f.)
chaussette (f.)
enfant (m.)
lutin (m.)
hiver (m.)
traîneau (m.)
jouet (m.)
grelots (m.pl.)
13. gui (m.)
SEE IF THESE ACTIVITIES ARE RIGHT FOR YOUR STUDENTS. TRY . . .
a free English version of “En commençant par la fin” :
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/i-know-these-words-backwards-and-forwards-thanksgiving-11424790
a free English version of "Mots coupés:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/chop-chop-a-hallowe-en-word-puzzle-11407269
This is a competitive, repetitive game that will help your students to listen “actively” and to familiarise themselves with a tricky grammar point through the process of osmosis.
Tobe sure that this activity is right for your class, try the free resource, Let’s get to the bottom (or top) of LES EXPRESSIONS AVOIR: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/let-s-get-to-the-bottom-of-les-expressions-avoir-6451763
HERE ARE THREE SAMPLE SENTENCES FROM LGTTB(OT)OLVD&MV
• Ma grand-mère est allée chez un tatoueur / pierceur. Je me demande si elle
va rentrer avec un tatouage ou un piercing . . .
• Harry, Ron et Hermione sont montés dans l’express à destination de l’école
Poudlard (Hogwarts).
• Le train est parti le premier septembre de la voie 93⁄4 à la gare de King’s Cross.
As students solve this MOTDOKU (SUDOKU) du SUBJONCTIF they inadvertently “write out” the following verbs. (Yes, it’s manipulative! Mea culpa.)
1 que je vienne
2 que je doive
3 que je prenne
4 que je voie
5 que je veuille
6 que je puisse
7 que j’aille
8 que je sache
9 que je fasse
To be sure that this kind of activity is right for your students, download the free MOTDOKU du subjonctif (vouloir):
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/le-sudoku-du-subjonctif-vouloir-6160677