6 fun French Vocabulary Games

As a Core French teacher, you know that it can be tough to keep your students engaged in learning vocabulary. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! In this blog post, we will discuss six fun and engaging French vocabulary games that will help your students learn and remember new words.

So without further ado, let’s get started!

Here are some of our favorite Core French vocabulary games :

Ball Toss

This can be used as a whole-class game or you can divide your class into two smaller groups. I use this for practicing verb conjugation and vocabulary. To start, have students form a circle and give one student a ball. To practice verbs, you’ll call out a subject and a verb to conjugate (and specify a tense if you are working with multiple tenses). To practice vocabulary, you can either show a picture or call out the English word. Students give the word or conjugation and then toss the ball to another student.

You can eliminate students with wrong answers if you want to make it a competition, but I usually just do it for practice so students don’t get stressed out about it and miss out on the practice.

Act it out!

This is a great game for review vocabulary words and phrases. To play, students act out a word or phrase while their classmates guess what it is. This game can be played with teams or individually.

Draw it!

This game is similar to charades, but instead of acting out the word or phrase, students draw it. Again, this game can be played with teams or in small groups. To play in small groups, give students individual whiteboards and they can play with a few classmates. I like to play this on days when students need a change of pace but don’t have a ton of energy for a game with a lot of movement.

Flyswatter

These French vocabulary games can be done on your whiteboard with premade slides or you can write words on a chalkboard or whiteboard. Each player will have a flyswatter. Students face off in teams and race to swat the word first. You’ll call out the definition (or English word for translation practice) and have students race to swat the word first. Students love it because they get SO competitive!

Quest-ce que c’est?

Students ask yes or no questions about the object until they guess what it is. It’s a fun way to help students learn the idea of circumlocution, too! You can play it with any vocabulary set you’re using, so it’s a perfect game to play when you have an extra five or ten minutes at the end of class.

Vocabulary slap

This is my on of my students’ all-time favorite French vocabulary games, because they love racing each other! You’ll cut out the playing cards and give a set of cards to each group of students. I recommend groups of 3-4, but they can play in pairs or even individually.

Have students place the cards face up on their desks so that everyone can see and reach all the cards.

You’ll call out a word and students will race to find the correct card first. If the student has found the correct card, they’ll keep it until the end of the game. You’ll continue calling out words until all the cards have been claimed.

To call out the French words, use the image cards. If you want to use the word cards, you can either call out the English word or help them practice reading by calling out the French word.