Around the world

I love classroom games. Sure, they may not be the most effective for practicing language as a whole, but they get the job done and they don't have to take a lot of time. Generally, we work on translations or conjugations or spelling. Mostly, it gets energy back into the classroom, and a little competition gets motivation back up to where it needs to be. My teens LOVE games--all levels love them. Sometimes they love them so much that they get really, really into them and become totally disruptive and chaotic. All I have to say is "game fast" and they obey me immediately. I love it.

White boards are super fun and the most effective for whole classroom practice with immediate feedback. I used to do this with chalk and a mini blackboard. All kids love to write with what the teacher writes, whether it's chalk or a white board marker or a smartboard electronic marker. Somehow Teacher's Pen is special. The only thing is that board markers are expensive and their smell can get overpowering, so the rule is no doodling. As soon as a student starts doodling, they're out and boy do they hate that.

I love Question Face Off. A player from each team tries to stump the opponent by giving them a phrase to translate (using whatever grammatical structures or vocabulary we're learning). The catch is that if the opponent doesn't think the author can translate his own sentence, she can challenge him. It's great.

Speed conjugations almost get violent as students get into the milisecond differences between who finished first and who cheated and who raised their hand first. Their accusations can get serious. My response? Teach them how to say those things in French!

Zut! is where the vocab is displayed on the board and two students from opposite teams have to run up and point (or swat with a flyswatter) the word I say. Again, the blocking can get violent, like in a basketball court.

Today, we played Around the World with vocab translations. One student stands behind the first student in the row and they compete to translate the word I give them. The first person to say it correctly moves onto the next student, and so on. It was my class of 8 upperclassmen girls and 1 sophomore boy. The word was "se sentir" and sure enough it was this boy against his female classmate and he was on a roll, moving from student to student. This word momentarily stumped them both, so they started frantically guessing, getting closer and closer:
"to feel!" "to smell!" "to smell yourself!" "to feel yourself!"

The whole class, including myself and the two players, paused for a milisecond as their brains registered what he had just said, and then everybody BUSTED OUT LAUGHING.