mfl activities

MFL ActivitiesLots of activities, ideas and resources

to use in your MFL lessons.

reading

listening

speaking

writing

numeracy

ICT

dictionary

SKILLS

Sit ‘n’ SpinGreat idea – taken from Pinterest

TrapdoorStudent has to read through guessing the correct answer. If they get it right they carry on. If they get it wrong someone else ha to have a go but start from the beginning. Lots of repetition – great for listening skills. First one to the end wins a prize.

DartsBought from the 99p Store. I use as a plenary. If students get the question right they can throw the dart. Group with the most points wins. A

good one for the boys.

AdjectivesNice idea when learning adjectives. Students

could do this for homework.

Adjectives (2)Another good idea when covering adjectives.

Take photo to stick in their books.

Creative DescriptionsFun way of presenting a piece of writing.

Guess WhoPowerPoint with celebrities’ names translated into French. Students use a dictionary to help

them figure out who the person is.e.g. prendre ça = Take That

French - Who am I?

Challenge CapsulesMake tubs with challenges for early finishers.

(You can get about 8 of these tubs in 99p Store/Poundland)

Guess The SongA nice starter activity. My students love this one.

PowerPoint with English song titles translated into Spanish and they have to guess the English.

Spanish Guess The Song

Number FlashcardsWrite some random numbers (including

negatives) on the board and stick flashcards over them. Students are in

teams, they tell you a phrase, you take off the flashcard and that is the number of

points they get.

Question ChairsHide Common Core questions under their seat and announce 'hot seat' sometime during the day. Whoever has a question under their seat has to answer it.

Guess the WordEverybody standing up. Write a word on a whiteboard and students have to guess what it is and write it on their own. They reveal their boards then teacher reveals theirs. If they have matched, they can sit down. If not, they rub off their word and start again.

Phrase of the WeekGive students a word/phrase of the week. If they use it correctly in context they win a raffle ticket. One of these is picked out at the end of each week and this student wins a lolly.

JAUNE BLEU ROUGE BRUN BLANC NOIR ORANGE VERT

VIOLET GRIS BLEU ROUGE BRUN BLANC NOIR GRIS VERT VIOLET JAUNE BLEU ROUGE BRUN BLANC NOIR ORANGE VERT VIOLET

Je

regarder

Heads and Tails SentencesGive students some starts and ends of sentences and they have to join them

up.

Hier je suis allé en avion.J’ai voyagé un croissant.J’ai visité en France.J’ai mangé les monuments.

Map speaking activityGood for talking about places in town, directions

and prepositions. In pairs students have a different map each and a copy of their partner’s with some places missing which they have to fill

in by listening to their partner’s description/asking questions.

Radio AppDownload the TuneIn radio app. Click 'By Location' >

Europe > France/Spain then choose either the type of music (genre) you want to listen to or the area in

France or Spain.

Fortune TellersGet your students to make these to practise job

vocab. Good for recap of basic numbers and colours.

What do you know about…?

Tell your partner everything you know about…

Ball RepetitionStudents throw the ball around the room repeating the word after the teacher.

Card FinderPlace flashcards on the walls around the room. Say the word in the TL/English and students point to the correct part of the room.

MimingMime a word and students shout out in the target language.

Passez la bombeBuy a kitchen timer and put it in a small black box. Put the timer in the box. When you play, set the timer for between 1-2 mins, put

into box and say a question you've covered recently which can have many different answers. Pass the

bomb to first pupil, who can pass it on when they've said an answer.

Whoever is holding the bomb when it goes off has to do a forfeit.

4 Chairs4 chairs at the front of the class. The rest of class

must ask each in turn a question. If they are correct the person stays on the chair. If not the questioner takes place. The 4 still on the chairs

at the exact moment the bell rings gain points/sweets.

Cups

NOUNS VERBS ADJECTIVES

Students are given a set of cards with vocab on and they have to put them in the correct

cup.

First LettersGive the students the first letter of each word in a sentence. They have to figure out what the sentence is.

J V A B D L MJe vais au bord de la mer.

Weather WallInteractive Weather Display

Interactive weather display which students can easily update or can be

discussed as a starter activity.

Knocking Out TeethDivide the class into two teams. Ask individual team

members questions. Draw two big mouths on the whiteboard, giving each about 8 teeth. If they get it RIGHT, you erase one tooth from the OPPONENTS

mouth.

Other suggestions:• Draw sweets and take them away• Eat up each others’ apples, bananas, ice-creams, etc. • Draw a person for each; then, with each mistake they make, draw a part of

something around them; if they lose, they end up with a large monster’s mouth swallowing them.

(1) Mon collège s’appelle Ridgewood School.Hallcross School.Danum School.

(2) J’aimeles mathsl’histoirel’anglais (3) parce que

c’est facile.

intéressant.amusant.

ennuyeuseirascible

méchante

(4) Je déteste les maths parce que le prof est

(6) Ma matière préférée est

(5) Le dessin est plus ennuyeux que

l’histoirela technologie

les sciences

la géographiele sport

l’espagnol

j’adore apprendre les langues.

c’est très facile.

(7) parce que

Encore Une FoisSimilar to previous. One volunteer to leave the room. Rest of

class agree on answers. The volunteer comes back in and begins to read and guesses a/b/c. If correct he continues. If incorrect he must go back to the beginning and guess again. Every time the volunteer gets the answer wrong, he must go back to the beginning and class says ”encore une fois”. This

could then be done in pairs.

(1) Mon collège s’appelle Ridgewood School.Hallcross School.Danum School.

  1 2 3 4 5 6A Luc Pierre Yohan Thierry Quentin Laurent

B sept quinze dix-sept dix-huit neuf six

C Normalement

Tous les jours

Une fois par

semaine

Une fois par mois

Tous les deux jours

Quelquefois

D du pain grillé

des céréales du pain un

croissant

un pain au

chocolatdu fruit

E du jus d’orange du thé du café du jus de

pomme de l’eau du lait

F six sept huit neuf dix onze

G la cuisine

ma chambre

la salle à manger le salon le jardin la

voiture

H ma soeur

mon frère

mon copain

ma famille

mes parents

mon petit ami

I savoureux délicieux bon goûteux nourriss

ant génial

Roll the dice and fill in the gaps of your paragraph.A   Salut, je m’appelle ________________ et B j’ai ___________ ans.C    _________________________ au petit déjeuner D je mange _________________ etE je bois _______________________ . F   D’habitude je mange le petit déjeuner à __________ heures G dans ______________ H   avec ___________________.I    J’adore manger du pain grillé avec du beurre et de la confiture parce que c’est _________________.

Dice Gap Fill

TextivateTextivate

Virtual TeachersTo promote independent learning and

differentiation. Make a PowerPoint slide with questions related to the task and hyperlink the answers. Students can click these when they

need to.

DingbatsStudents guess the word/phrase from the picture on the screen. Good to get their brains ticking at the start of the

lesson.

Sequencing and Matching

Give students a text and translation cut up. They match the text with the translation

and put in the correct order.

TraysRed, amber, green trays for end of lesson. Students put their book in the correct tray depending on their level of understanding.

Similar WritingStudents are given two very different texts and have to find the similarities between the two in order to help them decide what they need to

include in their own piece of writing.

J’habite avec ma soeur dans une

petite maison en Angleterre.

J’habite avec ma mère dans une

grande maison en France.

Expert TablesChoose students who have mastered an aspect of languages. Other students go and see these

people for help.

Silent readingRead a book,

story, poem or newspaper in

the target language.

Card Racing Game• Create 7 cards with different tasks.• Put the pupils into pairs or groups of 3. To

start the game give each group a card and a mini board.

• They then have to complete the task and one member of the group brings it to you to check. Once they have had the answer checked they get another card.

• The object of the game is to complete all the cards first, this group wins. Record on a grid which group has completed which cards and offer a prize to each member of the winning group as an inventive.

Paired Gap-fill• Everybody has the same text but with

different words missing.

• Each pair should be left with two complete texts.

• Take it in turns to read out a paragraph. Your partner listens to your pronunciation and writes the correct words in the gaps.HOWEVER YOU MUST NOT LOOK AT 

EACH OTHER’S SHEETS.

6 15 19 6 9 0 21 22 6 24 12 22

Students crack the code to guess the topic of today’s lesson.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M19 18 6 12 22 11 2 21 25 10 9 5 3

N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z16 24 13 17 15 1 0 23 7 4 20 14 8

Find in the textStudents underline/highlight (in different

colours) verbs, adjectives, verbs in the present tense etc.

Say the next wordProvide students with a text. Read the text aloud

then stop. Students have to say the next word/next word in the sequence.

Against the clockTime pupils to read out a

paragraph/sentence.

Gap FillWrite words/sentences in the board with

letters/words missing. Students have to fill in the gaps.

___ m’appelle John. J’________ en Angleterre avec ____ famille.

Let students brainstorm ideas. For example they could think of alternate endings for each verb phrase.