As a core French teacher, I like to engage my students by starting each French period with an opening activity. My opening activities allow for assessment in listening, speaking, reading and writing. Each day of the week is assigned for a particular opening activity:

Monday: Videos

I start my lessons on Mondays by showing a video to the students. Students are engaged as I provide videos with basic French vocabulary and/or with subtitles. Sometimes, I will ask my students to get out their journals and write down at least 5 familiar words they heard. After, the video, students have a n opportunity to speak with their elbow partner about the familiar words they heard and what they think the video is about. We discuss, as a class, and students share some of their familiar words. We discuss the meaning of the words to conclude the meaning of the video.

Tuesday: Music

On Tuesdays, I begin my lessons by showing pop French music for my students to listen to. I choose artists that students in Québec and France are listening to, that are up-beat and engaging. For lyric videos, I ask students to find familiar words for a discussion after the song. For music videos, I ask students to watch the video and try to figure out what the song is about from the images and the familiar words they hear. Students have an opportunity to discuss with each other before sharing with the class.

Wednesday: Picture

I like to find pictures for my students to practice speaking French. Pictures that I choose will sometime have words, like a French meme. We discuss the familiar words and translate the meaning of the picture. Other times, I will have pictures without words, such as spot the difference and cartoons. With spot the difference, I will provide students with sentence starters like: “Il y a…” (there is…), “Il n’y a pas…” (there isn’t…), “voilà!…” (here is…), etc. For cartoon pictures without words, I will ask students to create a story, about a paragraph long, with their table group to introduce the characters, tell us what they are doing, and why. I will provide my students with familiar vocabulary so they can write their story in their journals. Each table group has an opportunity to share their story with the class.

Thursday: Tongue Twister

To engage students to speak and practice familiar words, I like to start my Thursday lessons with a tongue twister. Each tongue twister is displayed on the board with a picture for visual aid. I ask the students for the familiar words and we discuss unfamiliar words. Then, we do “écouter et répéter” (listen and repeat) while I say the words and the class, in unison, repeats the words. I will break down each word, then a couple, then the sentence for students to listen and repeat. Students also have the opportunity to have friendly competitions with each other, who can say the tongue twister 5 times fast accurately.

Friday: Activity

For a fun end of the week opening activity, I like to play a game with my students. The games I have played so far, are: “pomplemousse”, “dix”, and “qui esce-que”. Pomplemouuse and Dix are games for students to practice their numbers in French and Qui Esce-que is like a human “Guess Who” game where students ask questions to their peers. For more details about the games I play with my students to practice numbers and vocabulary, please stay tuned for my next blog on French games!

Do you have a routine to engage your students? Tell me about it in the comment section below!