Games to teach professions in French class add fun and excitement to classroom learning. They also appeal to the auditory and kinesthetic learners in the classroom by incorporating movement and role play in the classroom.
Games to Teach Professions in French Class
Before incorporating French learning activities to teach professions, be sure to leave plenty of time for the game. Always leave more time than you think is necessary to allow for questions from the class. Be sure to have on hand any props needed for games, too.
Pick a Profession for Vocabulary Practice
For this game, you'll need just a few old magazines, construction paper and glue. Flip through the magazine and clip out ads or images depicting various professions. Glue them to the pieces of construction paper. On the back of the paper, write the name of a profession in French and in English. To estimate the number of images you'll need, take the total number of students in your class and divide it by two or three, then multiple that number by 10.
Ask your students to pair up. If you have an odd number of students, one group can have three students, or you can pair up with a student. Ask one person to be the leader and give that person ten pieces of paper with professions on them. Be sure to instruct the students not to show the back of the paper. Have the students use the images like flash cards, asking the group to say the name of the profession. Once all of the flash cards are exhausted, rotate them among the groups. You can also hold up the cards yourself at the front of the room and allow students to just call out the names.
Once the students are familiar with the cards, use them a second time. For this game, each student should pick one card at random. The student should then go to the front of the room and pantomime or act out the profession. The other students may ask three questions, in French only, of the student acting out the name to get clues. The student acting out the part may also only answer in French. The goal is to guess the name of the profession.
Teach Culture and Professions
Teach culture and professions by focusing your flash cards on famous French artists, explorers, musicians, writers and more. You can easily find photos of people online and print them off or make a slideshow to flash at the front of the classroom. Engage students in conversation about the person, and use the opportunity to help them build vocabulary around each profession as well as their contribution to French culture, society or history.
Another idea to incorporate culture and history with a lesson on professions is to ask students to research a famous French person as part of their homework assignment. Like the professions role-play game, students can then role-play or give the class clues about who they are, all spoken in French. It can become a 20-questions type of game until the rest of the class correctly identifies the famous person.
The Interview Game
This game also uses role-play to build vocabulary and speaking practice. Once again, ask your students to pair up or assemble in small groups. Assign each group a setting: court room, class room, office building, restaurant, retail store, hospital, etc. One student should volunteer to be the 'expert' while the other students will play journalists or television reporters. The reporters will then role play an interview with the expert to learn more about their career. The questions and responses should be in French. If completing this activity in small groups, another student can write down the interview. Once the interviews are completed, each group should share what they learned with the rest of the class to ensure that everyone gets a chance to speak and practice French.
More Ideas for Games
Many online teaching websites, forums and groups provide ideas for foreign language games. Games used to teach students vocabulary in other languages can be changed slightly to teach French. Teaching Ideas provides dozens of games for students learning foreign languages. Although the site is geared towards younger children, even older students who are new to a language can benefit from playing these games. You can also try easy games such as bingo, hang man, and jeopardy in French with a theme built around professions.
