1. Games for Language Lessons
Kate Carter

2. Battleships Jouer Vendre Finir Je Tu il / elle Nous Vous Ils / elles
Students can do this is pairs. Each student has one of these grids and they secretly plot where their ships are. This one is for present tense but you can change it for anything. Each student has to conjugate the verb and if they get it in their partner’s square where they have one of their ships, then they have sunk that ship. The winner is the person who sinks all of the ships.

3. Noughts and Crosses Bread coffee jam butter cheese ham tea
Hot chocolate
Ice cream
For this game, you can split the class into 2 and each group has a team captain. That team captain is responsible for choosing members of their group to say one of the images / words in the box in the target language. The winners are the ones who get a line, either vertically or diagonally.

4. Crack the code 1. 4’1352 43 730 (j’aime le thé) 2.......... 3........
abc 2
def 3
ghi 4
jkl 5
mno 6
pqr
This can be adapted to fit your language. You can also differentiate it so that you have more complicated codes for your more able students. I am always amazed at how quickly they work it out. 7
stu 8
vwx 9 yz éè

5. Translation Game Hello Hello. My name is Kate
Hello. My name is Kate and I am 11 years old
Hello. My name is Kate and I am 11 years old and I live in Leicester.
Hello. My name is Kate and I am 11 years old and I live in Leicester. I like football
Hello. My name is Kate and I am 11 years old and I live in Leicester. I like football because it is fun
This can be used as a whole class activity. Again, split the class into 2 and give each team a team captain. The team captain is responsible for choosing the students (encourage them to pick different students) and then they have to translate each sentence as they get progressively more difficult. If the team translates it correctly, they are awarded the points next to the sentence. If they make a mistake, then the other team has a change to steal the points by having a go at translating. This can be adapted for any topic.

6. The odd one out 1 thé café fromage 2 vacances vélo plage 3 homme fille
magasin
This is more of a thinking game and is great as a starter. Can be adapted to fit any topic. Students have to say which one they think is the odd one out of each line and why. It is amazing what reasons they come up with. Discussion can be done in English or TL depending on the ability of your students.

7. Make your own sentencesje j’ il
elle
adore
aime
le café
le fromage
le thé
la confiture
parce que
parce qu’
est
These can be adapted for different topics / grammar points. You can also get rid of the colour if you want to make it more difficult and mix the words up more than I have done. Students are given 1 minute to create their own sentence using the words above. You can change it to a translation game with mini whiteboards where you say the sentence in English and the students write them down in TL. You can also do it with more variation in the language and encourage students to use as many words as possible. The winner is the one with the most words.
délicieuse
délicieux

8. Guess Who Lisa Ben Rachel Jacob Stephen Rose Philip Maurice Jonathan
Guess who is a great game to practise physical descriptions. Can be played as a class with 2 teams or in pairs. Students have to describe someone and the other team / person has to correctly guess who they are describing. Please feel free to change the names!
Stephen
Rose
Philip
Maurice
Jonathan
Lucy
Helen
Henry

9. Complete the sentences
Normalement je au foot
Hier je suis au supermarché
Maintenant je mes devoirs
Demain je aller au cinéma
Students complete the sentences with the correct word. These can be adapted to the ability of your students. It can also lead to a discussion of why it has to be a certain word (especially as there are more words than gaps)
joue
vais
aime
allé (e)
suis
jouer
fais

10. Snakes and Ladders 21 Parler (vous) 22 Avoir (on) 23 Etre (elle) 24
Pouvoir (Je)
FIN 25 20
Dire (Je) 19
Ecouter (elles) 18
Promener (elle) 17
Voir (Je) 16
Croire (il) 11
Demander (il) 12
Rire (vous) 13
Rester (tu) 14
Venir (elles) 15
Penser (Je) 10
Vouloir (je) 9
Vendre (je) 8
Lire (nous) 7
Vivre (elles) 6
Danser (ils)
DÉBUT 1 2
Jouer (je) 3
Faire (nous) 4
Habiter (vous) 5
Aller (il)
This can be played in 2 teams or in pairs / smaller teams. Students will need dice and counters. This one is for present tense but can be adapted for any language and any topic.

11. One dice, one pen
Normally, I play football but I think it is boring and I prefer tennis because it is fun. My sister, Lisa likes to play tennis too. My mum hates tennis and she prefers to watch the T.V.
This is where students work in pairs. One student has a dice and the other, a pen. The one with the pen starts to translate the above in TL until the one with the die rolls a 6 and then s/he has the pen and works on her / his own translation. So it goes on until one of them has completed the translation. You can also do any other kind of written task. Please adapt the above to your topic area.

12. non, je ne suis pas d’accord.
Tu aimes ta ville?
oui...
à mon avis
je pense que
c’est
très
assez
bien
joli
intéressant
super
non...
trop
un peu
ennuyeux
petit
nul
tu es d’accord?
oui, je suis d’accord.
non, je ne suis pas d’accord.
Please adapt to your topic. You could this as a group activity or a pair activity. You could use it in multiple ways. A student could say the English and 2 students up at the board have to tap the correct TL. You could have mini whiteboards and you could say the English and they have to write the sentence in TL. You could also use it to extend sentences – who can make the longest sentences. What else could we add? Finally, use it as a conversation starter and then lead it into a more detailed conversation in pairs
about the chosen topic.

13. Opinions ?
Using visual clues to help students to give opinions. I have differentiated the ones above. The green one students have to say the item of food and opinion in the TL. The amber one, the student has to say they don’t like the 2 different items but as a complete sentence. The red one, students have to say they like one thing, dislike another and give a reason. These can be adapted and used as a whole class activity or a pair speaking activity.

14. To go aller To like aimer To talk parler To ask demander To read lire
To be able to
pouvoir
To live
habiter
To hate
détester
To be
être
To have
avoir
This a vocab finding game. Students are each given one of the cards (either the English or TL) and they have to find their partner. Once they have found their partner, they have to come and write it up on the board. Winners are the first ones to sit back down after. You could adapt this to be about finding answers to the questions etc.
To sing
chanter
To dance
danser
To do
faire
To fall
tomber
To see
voir

15. Dominoes - grammar fais aller (Je) vais aller (elle) va aller (nous)
allons
aller (tu)
vas
aller (elles)
vont
aller (vous)
This is about the present tense of aller. You could adapt them for any verb and tense. You can also add more. Students could do this is pairs and it could lead to a discussion about the grammar point.
allez
faire (Je)

16. The Detective French English Un stade Un centre commercial
Un centre de loisirs
Un musée
Un marché
Une église
Des magasins
Une patinoire
Un château
Une piscine
To practise the pronunciation of new words. Pick a student to go out of the room. While s/he is out, you pick one student who is going to be the ‘changer’. The student from outside comes back in. You will now lead the students in a repetition game. You keep repeating the same word over and over again until the ‘changer’ winks at you (whatever the secret sign is) and you then lead the students to the next word and so on. The student who was out of the classroom stands at the front of the classroom to see if he can catch who the ‘changer’ is. You can then develop it into looking at the meanings of the words.

17. Dans ma ville. Il y a...
This is like the shopping game. Students are in 2 groups. 1 person from the group has to say what there is in his / her town following the arrows. If s/he pauses for too long or gets it wrong, it goes over the team to see if they can complete it. The winners are the team who finish the whole list.
FINI

18. This can be done in a group or in pairs
This can be done in a group or in pairs. I have left the places blank for your to fill in with your places in town. One student is to think of a place in town on the map but doesn’t share it. They then have to direct another student there. If the student gets to the right place, they win but if they don’t then the original player (the person given the directions) wins.

19. Other games: Here are some other games you can use:
Flashcards. After doing some listening and repeating with the new vocabulary, hide one of the flashcards behind your back. The students have to guess which one it is.
Hangman. Great for practising letters in TL.
SLAM game. You have images up on the board of new vocabulary. 2 students are up at the board. Get different students in the rest of the group to say one of the images in TL and the 2 students at the front of the room, have to tap / slam the correct image. First person to do this, wins. I also include a rule that it has to be the FIRST one they touch NOT the second, third etc.
Hot seat. Students pick a word from the topic you are currently doing (animals, celebrities works well if you are doing physical descriptions) They have to sit at the front of the room while other students ask him/ her questions to try and find out the answer. The student at the front can only say Yes / No in the target language. The other students must ask the questions in TL too so it will need some preparation or some question words on the board to help.
Listening activities. Get the students to listen to an extract a few times. You can read out the transcript if it is easier. Keep it to a relatively simple one too. You could even get them to do a few warm up activities like put your hand up when you hear the French for bird etc. Keep building the difficulty and then play it and pause it, students to see if they can guess / remember what word comes next.