When you have taught and practised new vocabulary, you will want to explore as many ways as possible to embed the language in children’s minds and it will help if you build up a supply of games which involve listening, responding and thinking about the target language. Some of the following games involve running around, some are team games and others require more reflection, but there should be something to fit every occasion, adding enjoyment and fun to the lesson. When you have tried them out, think back to the favourite games which you currently use as a warm-up in physical education lessons which require very little apparatus; it doesn’t take much to tweak them into something simple and suitable for teaching a new language.
Whenever you have a game in a big space, set up a little routine which keeps children busy and active with few instructions. Start them off with finding a place and then get them moving with simple verbs, stopping at intervals to follow the next part of your game.
| English | French | German |
| find a place | trouvez une place | findet einen Platz |
| run, walk, jump | courez, marchez, sautez | lauft, geht zu Fuß, springt |
| stop, dance, listen | arrêtez, dansez, écoutez | haltet, tanzt, hört zu |
| slowly, fast | lentement, vite | langsam, schnell |
This game is a useful introductory activity for beginners, as you only need to know numbers up to ten or so and it needs no equipment. Children run around/walk/jump as usual according to your instructions, then stop when you call out a number and get into groups of that number. They have to join up and then wait for you to check by counting aloud with you.
A more exciting version of the simple game above is to ask the children to get into groups of a given number, making a kebab on a stick. For this they have to lie down on the floor in their groups, but this time lying head to toe as close as possible in their kebab. The sight of thirty-two children trying to get organised squashing up alternately heads and then toes is enough to brighten anyone’s day!
| English | French | German |
| a kebab | une brochette | ein Spieβ |
| get into groups of three | mettez-vous en groupes de trois | stellt euch in Gruppen von drei auf |
This familiar game uses vocabulary practised recently such as colours, clothes, parts of the body etc. For beginners, keep simply to colours. You announce touch blue and everyone has tomove around the room and touch something blue on someone else (gently!). With older children, stretch to other nouns and gradually add more adjectives, for example, a left hand, blonde hair, a red jumper.
English
Touch…
…blue/red/green/orange/yellow
…left hand/right hand
…a red jumper
…blonde hair
Touchez…
…le bleu/le rouge/le vert/l’orange/le jaune
…la main gauche/la main droite
…un pull rouge
…les cheveux blonds
German
Berührt…
…das Blaue/Rote/Grüne/Orange/Gelbe
…die linke/rechte Hand
…einen roten Pulli
…die blonden Haare
Teach the words for three body parts (see also Chapter 3 for basic vocabulary). More experienced classes could have tricky ones such as ankle, elbow, hips. Children run/walk/jump around the room as usual according to your instructions and then you tell them to touch their ankle or elbow etc. The point is for them to place their ankle against the ankle of another person or a group of people together. When everyone is joined to another person, start off running, walking etc. again and choose another body part or even two body parts at the same time. This is an inclusive, co-operative game and works best if you encourage groups to let in as many people as possible.
| English | French | German |
| ankle | la cheville | der Knöchel |
| elbow | le coude | der Ellenbogen |
| hips | les hanches | die Hüften |
| knees | les genoux | die Knie |
| shouldersles | les épaules | die Schultern |
Children move around the room following instructions such as run/ walk/ jump etc. until you tell them to stop and call out an instruction to do with early morning routines, for example: brush your hair; get washed; eat a croissant; have a shower. While they run around, you could play background music of a familiar song from a CD learned in an earlier lesson or a general CD of international music.
| English | French | German |
| get up | levez-vous | steht auf |
| get washed | lavez-vous | wascht euch |
| clean your teeth | brossez-vous les dents | putzt euch die Zähne |
| eat a croissant | mangez un croissant | esst ein Croissant |
| have a shower | prenez une douche | duscht euch |
| brush your hair | brossez-vous les cheveux | bürstet euch die Haare |
One child is chosen to be the monster/wolf and stands at one end of the hall/room/playground. Others all wait at the other end and call: Mister Monster, Mister Monster, how many heads have you? S/he replies with a number, for example three, while his/her back is turned. The children take that number of steps towards the monster. This continues until the monster feels the children behind him/her might be close enough to catch. Instead of a number s/he calls out: I’m hungry, turns, and tries to catch a victim for supper!
English
Mister Monster, Mister Monster, how many heads have you?
Mister Wolf
I’m hungry
Monsieur Monstre, Monsieur Monstre, combien de têtes avez-vous?
Monsieur Loup
J’ai faim
German
Herr Monster, Herr Monster, wieviele Köpfe haben Sie?
Herr Wolf
Ich habe Hunger
This is a hugely popular game and can be adapted to practise any vocabulary, whether individual words or complete phrases. It’s particularly useful for words in a sequence (for example, days of the week, months of the year), so that you can keep track of what you’ve called. Otherwise, try to make a note of the vocabulary and a tally because children soon feel aggrieved if they don’t have as many turns as their neighbour!
Children have to listen keenly for their word, prompt one another and still have a chance to run about. This game works well with a shopping theme where you start with practising language previously taught by showing objects bought on your shopping trip.
Children sit in pairs on the floor facing each other, with their feet touching, making lines like the rungs of a ladder. Give each pair the name of an object or day of the week to remember. You start to tell a narrative about your shopping trip. Each time you say one of the children’s words, the pair has to get up, run up the ‘ladder’ of children’s legs, down the outside and back to their place. The fastest back can score a point for their side of the ladder. You could have two parallel ladders down the room to create a bit of competition and so that their words come up more often. You need to establish a few safety rules however; keep your knees down, legs together and make sure your arms aren’t behind you to be trodden on by the runners. If there is a child who cannot run for whatever reason, ask them to call out some of the shopping words, adjudicate on the winners, keep the score etc.
The months of the year are presented in Chapter 1, ‘Setting the Scene’. Here are some other useful words.
English
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
a litre of milk
a kilo of apples
French
lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredi, samedi, dimanche
un litre de lait
un kilo de pommes
German
Montag, Dienstag, Mittwoch, Donnerstag, Freitag, Samstag, Sonntag
Ein Liter Milch
Ein Kilo Äpfel
Children stand in a circle with one chosen to be the postman. If you have a hat such as a little beret for him or her, this adds to the fun. S/he runs round the outside of the circle carrying a big envelope (if possible, get one ready in advance with a foreign-looking stamp, an Air Mail sticker and the school address written in the target language) while everyone else chants and slaps their legs: The postman’s coming. What time is it? Then everyone chants the hours of the clock, for example, one o’clock, two o’clock… (see Chapter 3 for clock times). When midday is reached, the postman drops his letter behind the child nearest to him. That child chases the postman around the outside of the circle to try to catch him or her before s/he gets back to the spare place. The loser then becomes the next postman. The teacher can vary the speed at which they run by calling out first class or second class so the game can be played faster or in slow motion.
This game can be played with a parachute or just with everyone linking arms. Children stand in a circle holding hands loosely to make a fishing net or holding the parachute, raising and lowering the net with the waves. Three or four children are chosen to be fish and run in and out of the net. Before they start, the fish move into a huddle on one side of the room while the net circle silently decides on a secret number between one and ten. The net circle raises and lowers their linked arms (or parachute) to simulate a fishing net in the sea. The fish children run in and out of the circle as the net children count out loud together and, when they reach their secret number, they suddenly drop their arms/parachute to catch some fish children inside the circle. Any caught ‘fish’ have to swap places with some net children so the game can start again. You could vary this by using months of the year or days of the week or anything with a predictable sequence.
Children stand in a circle and the teacher tells them in turn one of four words to remember (e.g. four fruits/animals/drinks/colours etc.). When their word is called, those children run into the centre of the circle and change places with each other.
All sit in a circle facing outwards. Give each child one of four words currently being learned and they get up and run around the outside of the circle when you call their word (as for Fruit Salad), but if you call Midnight or Storm (something appropriate in the foreign language to do with your topic) they have to turn round and back the opposite way. Only do this extra bit when they’ve shown they can be sensible in the first part! It’s a good incentive for playing the game co-operatively.
| English | French | German |
| midnight | minuit | Mitternacht |
| storm | l’orage | der Sturm |
| fruit salad | salade de fruits | der Obstsalat |
This game is good for practising little phrases which add that extra something, or useful expressions which you suddenly find children have forgotten such as See you soon; Thanks a lot; Have a good journey. One class had forgotten how to say please and thank you: this game soon put that right! All stand in a circle and one child is chosen to go around the outside of the circle, tapping each person gently on the shoulder and saying the same one of two chosen phrases each time. When s/he reaches a person of his or her choice, s/he says the second phrase instead and then the two children run round the outside of the circle, back to their place. To add to the suspense, make a rule that each person is not allowed to choose their best or even usual friends; it is much more exciting if you cannot anticipate who will be chosen.
You can buy packets of little animal finger puppets online very cheaply or even make some out of old rubber gloves (see Chapter 5, ‘Being Creative’). You could also make some from card to use in class and give each one a suitable foreign name, as they are a good way of encouraging children to practise little conversations with each other. Even shy children can adopt a different persona with a puppet on their finger and feel confident approaching others in the group. Give out a puppet to each person and ask them to go round the room to say hello to the other puppets, exchanging their names, asking how everyone is feeling.
Most language teachers have special soft animal toys to use in the first few years with younger learners. You can use the animal to hold a regular dialogue with the class which you can build up over several weeks so that children start to recognise their part in the conversation. You can also throw the animal to an individual child and ask them a simple question to which they reply, for example, Good morning/How are you?/What’s your name? Make sure you’ve practised this conversation first with the whole class and that you start with a confident child on their own to set an example before the animal makes its way backwards and forwards around the class.
A favourite way of using soft toys is to add a characteristic to each one to introduce extra vocabulary seamlessly. Sometimes you only have to look at a toy and you can see how a description fits it (for example, happy, sad, fierce). You could give the animal a title depending on the gender of the noun in the language (thus masculine nouns would be Monsieur/ Herr as in Monsieur Singe/ Herr Affe/ Mr Monkey and feminine nouns would be Madame/ Frau as in Madame Vache/ Frau Kuh/ Mrs Cow) and then always describe the animal with the relevant adjective when you introduce it each lesson. Another popular trick is to stick a plaster on a body part of each toy and explain that the animal has a backache etc. Children repeat what you say and learn: Poor Teddy…, Take care, and enjoy guessing which bit of his body is injured this week.
English
Poor Teddy/Be careful!
Mrs Cow is happy/sad.
Mr Monkey is shy/angry.
Mr Tiger is fierce/kind.
Mr Bird has backache/a headache/earache.
French
Pauvre Nounours/Attention !
Madame Vache est heureuse/triste.
Monsieur Singe est timide/fâché.
Monsieur Tigre est féroce/gentil.
Monsieur Oiseau a mal au dos/mal à la tête/mal à l’oreille.
German
Armer Teddy/Pass auf!
Frau Kuh ist glücklich/traurig.
Herr Affe ist schüchtern/wütend.
Herr Tiger ist wild/freundlich.
Herr Vogel hat
Rückenschmerzen/Kopfschmerzen/Ohrenschmerzen.
This is a good one to break the ice at the beginning of the lesson and can be adapted to whatever phrase you want the class to practise. Arrange the children in two long lines facing each other. Challenge them to see how many people in the opposite line they can say your phrase to in a set time (for example, thirty seconds) perhaps shaking hands each time. This is a good chance to practise those important questions which children need to know, but you could also use any vocabulary with this game, even yes/no/ please/thank you. In this game you are not expecting a reply to the question, just practising the question itself. There are many introductory phrases in Chapter 1, ‘Setting the Scene’, and these three might also be useful.
| English | French | German |
| What’s the weather like? | Quel temps fait-il ? | Wie ist das Wetter? |
| Where are you going? | Où vas-tu ? | Wohin gehst du? |
| How much is …? | C’est combien ? | Was kostet …? |
This is a variation of the traditional starter in physical education. Prepare coloured cards for traffic light signals in red, orange and green and call out the matching language instructions for the class to move to when you raise each card.
| English | French | German |
| Get ready (orange) | Préparez-vous | Achtung! |
| Go (green) | Allez-y | Los! |
| Stop (red) | Arrêtez | Halt! |
This is a good one for practising directions such as to the left/to the right. All sit on chairs in a circle. A person in the middle calls out to the left and everyone keeps moving and sitting on the chairs in that direction until the opposite direction is called. When the person calls all change, they have to swap seats around the room. The person in the middle has to try to get a seat when everyone moves and then the person without a seat is the next caller.
| English | French | German |
| to the left/right | à gauche/à droite | links/rechts |
| two places to the left | deux places à gauche | zwei Schritte links |
| all change | changez de place tout le monde ! | Tauscht die Plätze! |
You could add extra details, for example, two chairs on the left.
This is a good game for counting numbers, whether multiples of ten or straightforward counting or sequences of words, such as days of the week or months of the year. Children stand in lines of about ten or whatever is appropriate for your vocabulary. All face the front and, at a signal, start calling out their sequence in quick succession from front to back of the line. As soon as they get to the end of the sequence, the person at the front runs to the back of the line and they start again with a new person at the front. Carry on until everyone has had a turn at the front. The first group to finish and sit down are the winners.
1 Stand in a circle and start counting around the circle in the target language. Any number which is a multiple of three or ends in three should be replaced by the word Hello in the target language and any number which is a multiple of five should likewise be replaced by Goodbye. Some groups may only be comfortable with numbers up to twenty, so adjust accordingly. Older children can obviously try more complex possibilities. This proves to be a good incentive for learning more numbers!
2 Instead of saying Hello or Goodbye, choose an action (for example, jump up in the air/crouch down) for the special numbers. Once you have tried some options, children could work in pairs to make their own sequences.
Just use one die if you want to practise numbers up to six, or two dice to create two-digit numbers or to add numbers together. Throw big foam dice at random from one child to another around the room. All call out the number formed in the language. To make this more lively, each child could run all the way around the outside of the circle to get back to their place when they’ve thrown the dice.
Stand in two lines facing one another. Against the clock, throw the dice (or a ball or beanbag) across the lines from person to opposite person, counting out loud together. See if they can beat the target time which you set in advance.
In pairs or small groups, children throw a beanbag to each other and count how far they can go without dropping it. They could take a step further apart after each multiple of five.
In pairs, children make up a clapping rhythm and count as far as they can, maybe spinning round after every multiple of five or crouching down and jumping up again after every multiple of ten.
For more advanced groups, throw a soft ball around the circle and the next person must say the next multiple of two or five, or the next odd or even number.
When you have done some work on clothes or weather, this game is really handy. Gather together a variety of children’s clothes in the biggest size available so that they are easy to put on in a hurry over normal clothes. Lost property boxes are a useful source, but don’t forget to give them a good wash! Everyone stands in a circle with the clothes in the middle in a heap. Give each child in the circle a number up to ten in rotation. Everyone counts aloud up to ten in unison and then you call out a number and an article of clothing on the floor. The children of that number run into the middle, put on the appropriate clothes and do a lap of honour wearing the clothes before announcing to the group what they are wearing. They quickly take them off again before the next round. This game works well with just a series of hats such as berets, sunhats, sports caps.
Many of us still remember with a shudder being one of the last to be picked for team games as a child, so try to avoid that embarrassment whenever teams are needed. An easy and fun way to sort out a team to play a game is to prepare sets of animal name cards, or weather cards, or whatever subject is appropriate, and hand one card out to each child in turn, either as they come into the room or when you are about to play a game. Each person has to go around the room whispering their animal name or weather name etc. (with or without a mime to accompany it) until they find all the others in that group. They sit down as a group and from then on are The Rabbit Group or The Sunshine Group etc. A more riotous version of this is to ask the children to make their animal noise to seek out their group members and then ask each animal group to demonstrate their noise when they have got together!
This game was inspired by a good friend who saw a collection of fly swatters in a village shop in deepest rural France and knew they would be ideal for an active language game. If you can’t find two plastic fly swatters (sometimes you can find them in one of the trendy new kitchenware shops on the high street) then a couple of plastic rulers will do. Spread out one set of large-print word cards relating to the topic you’ve been studying on the board (or just pictures at an early stage of learning) and stand well back! Divide the class into two teams and ask one person from each team to stand a few paces back from the board with the fly swatter and run up and swat as fast as possible the word you call out. Encourage everyone to have a go and make sure you adapt your choice of word to the ability of the children. Have spare rulers at hand if you have a heavy-handed group!
Divide the class into two teams. Put identical monster body outline pictures on the board for each team with monster body parts (a range of different noses, heads, eyes etc.) stuck separately at random in the centre of the board. Choose one representative from each team, stand them in the starting position as far away from the board as possible. When the teacher calls out a body part (see vocabulary presented earlier in this chapter under the heading ‘Moving around the room games’), the team reps race to find the correct part and stick it on their monster. As an extension, try adding a variety of coloured body parts, for example, call out two red noses for the team reps to find and stick on first. You could adapt this to any topic, for example, stick place names in the correct place on a map of the country or place animals in the correct zoo cage.
Children sit in a group or team with pencils/pens and paper. Prepare an envelope for each group with four or five strips of description for a monster written on them, for example, he has got three black eyes. Each group should have a unique set of descriptions. Children read and draw their monsters. When each group has finished, the children hold up their monster pictures and everyone has to guess what their instructions were.
English
Mr Monster has two big, red eyes.
He has three blue heads.
Mrs Monster has four small, yellow mouths.
She has five green noses.
He/she has six white ears.
He/she has seven black hands.
Monsieur Monstre a deux grands yeux rouges.
Il a trois têtes bleues.
Madame Monstre a quatre petites bouches jaunes.
Elle a cinq nez verts.
Il/Elle a six oreilles blanches.
Il/Elle a sept mains noires.
German
Herr Monster hat zwei große, rote Augen.
Er hat drei blaue Köpfe.
Frau Monster hat vier kleine, gelbe Münder.
Sie hat fünf grüne Nasen.
Er/Sie hat sechs weiße Ohren.
Er/Sie hat sieben schwarze Hände.
At the end of a section on sports, daily routines, school subjects or animals etc., ask children to work in a small team to make a medley of a couple of mimes. They could then perform these to their classmates who could guess which items they are showing.
Children sit in small teams with a mini-whiteboard and pen for each group. The teacher has a set of word flashcards of recently learned vocabulary which the children cannot see (these must be words that could be illustrated) and chooses one card secretly. One person from each team comes up and is shown the card, returns to the group and, without speaking a word, draws a picture to show the meaning of the word or phrase. The rest of the team have to guess the word, write it correctly on the board and then must read it in unison when all the teams are ready. Players take it in turns to get the next word to draw. Good topics for this are: weather words; body parts; breakfast food; transport.
This is a similar game with words instead of pictures. Teams sit together with a whiteboard and pen. One player from each group comes to the teacher, who displays very briefly a list of familiar items, made as easy or complicated as suits the class. The first player must remember as many items as possible from the list, run back and write them down as accurately as possible on the whiteboard without speaking. The second person then goes up to get the next group of phrases etc. Each player can only go up once. The winning group must have all the items written accurately in the correct order, and must be able to read them aloud in unison when they are declared winners.
This is a great game to do when you are well into a topic, but it helps if you do a bit of preparation in advance to support children who might be anxious. You could play it as an elimination game or have a weekly session with a different theme to broaden the scope of the game. Everyone sits in a circle. You start by setting a clapping rhythm which children join in: two slaps on the thighs followed by two clicks of the fingers in the air. When the rhythm is steady, you start by saying a word from the chosen subject – for example une glace/ ein Eis for a food theme – when you click your fingers, and the whole circle carries on the rhythm seamlessly. The next person in the circle says a new word with the same theme, for example: slap, slap, une glace/ ein Eis, slap, slap, un gâteau/ ein Kuchen. Make sure you’ve talked about possible words or, even better, put up a poster of suitable vocabulary. Reassure the class that they can always repeat one that’s gone before and have a few default options clearly on show, which are easy to say, such as une glace/ ein Eis, une banane/ eine Banane.
Another option is to go round the circle with the same food mentioned each time but a number in front increasing with each person, for example, one sweet, two sweets, three sweets. With older children who are accustomed to the format, ask them to add an adjective to their noun such as a small bird, a blue bird.
Put up a selection of breakfast pictures and words which you have practised in previous lessons. Children choose their favourite three items, which should include a drink and a piece of fruit, and write them down. Individuals come up to the front of the class and the rest of the class guess their choices.
Some people may feel that this is a contradiction in terms, but it is possible to have fun with grammar! Try these sample games to practise the alphabet (French and German alphabets are at the back of the book in Appendix 1).
All stand in a circle with a smallish soft ball. Start to sing/chant the alphabet aloud (there are lots of examples on commercial CDs to guide you with letter pronunciation) and throw the ball from person to person randomly, each throw making one letter of the chant. If possible, try to include every child just once in the routine. If you have more than twenty-six children in the class, keep going with a second chant until everyone has a throw. See how fast you can get through the alphabet and the class.
All stand in a circle and randomly scatter a complete set of letters of the alphabet on the floor in the centre. Start by moving round the circle chanting or singing the alphabet and then invite the children to pick up a letter. If you have more than twenty-six children in the class, put in enough letters for everyone to have one and a few extra to give a choice.
• Chant or sing the alphabet again while each person holds up their letter at the appropriate time. Call the letters out of order and see if they can match the sound and letter this way. Rearrange the cards in the correct order and repeat the alphabet.
• Ask them to hold the card up if they are a vowel and then if they are a consonant. Practise saying the letters aloud.
• Hold up a familiar written word and ask them to raise their letter if it is in the word. Spell the word out together a letter at a time. Play a game, swapping places if their letter appears in a given word.
• Children join up in groups of about ten and see if they can make up words using themselves as the letters. Provide some blank cards (mini-whiteboards to write on) to fill in any unavailable letters. Make a list together of all the words discovered and see if there any letters which are needed more often such as vowels.
In a similar way to the alphabet games, provide a selection of word cards in the target language. These may be nouns, adjectives, question words and verbs which you have practised. Ask children to pick up a word and then show you which word class it is by raising it in the air if it is a noun, verb, adjective etc. Play a swapping-places game for each word class, for example, change places if you are a noun.
Handy hint: it is possible to investigate making a sentence this way if your class have had enough experience with the language, but keep to what is within the grasp of the children. You could ask the adjectives to stand next to the nouns and discuss whether this makes a valid phrase. In French most adjectives follow the noun, except for very common ones such as small and big, whereas in German adjectives usually precede the noun as in English, but they must agree with the status of the noun and its gender. Continue asking children to make a longer sentence by putting pronouns first, then verbs, nouns, adjectives etc. Call out some of the words on the cards and the children raise their card in recognition. Continue around the circle so that everyone can see the range of words available. Children form small groups to make up phrases together and again use whiteboards to fill in any blanks.
As a finale for experienced groups, invite keen children to write as many combinations of words as they can find on a whiteboard. As a reinforcement activity at the end of the game, ask children to place their card in a named word-class bag which you prepared earlier, for example, a Noun bag, an Adjective bag.
Prepare three collections of picture cards on a familiar topic (for example cards containing the numbers one to ten, ten cards with fruit pictures, ten cards with colours) and ask three children to hold the sets in that order facing the class (i.e. one child holds the numbers, one the colours etc.). Throw two dice to generate a number and then turn over the first collection of cards that number of times. Continue generating numbers for each collection of cards so that you end up with a description, for example, three/ strawberries/ red, and say the finished phrase in the target language.