What to Teach French Beginners?

As Back to School season approaches, you may be wondering what to teach French beginners? Today I am sharing 5 types of activities for French class that work great during the Back to School season!

1) Numbers

When you first start thinking about what to teach French beginners, numbers may or may not pop into your head. After all, they’re not the most functional language.

BUT… when you are a FSL teacher, you NEED to be able to incorporate fun, fast paced games into your classroom. There are SO MANY French number games that your FSL students will enjoy. That’s why I always teach French numbers 0-10 during the first week of my FSL program.

Need to know how to pronounce these numbers that you are teaching your beginning French learners? Check out this FREE French Numbers pronunciation guide. Print it off and hang it in your classroom for students to reference all year long.

2) Basic Conversational Skills

The whole point of learning a second language is being able to speak it! Although it may be scary for your French students, incorporating oral language activities right from day 1 of your FSL program will pay off big time!

When considering what to teach French beginners when it comes to oral language, I like to teach one or two questions with possible answers each week.

During the first week of school in the French as a Second Language Classroom, I suggest teaching the following conversations:

1. Bonjour, comment t’appelles tu?
   1. Je m’appelle _______________.

1. Comment ça va?
   1. Ça va bien.
   2. Ça va mal.
   3. Ça va comme ci comme ça.

3) Why Learn French?

French beginners NEED to know why they are learning a second language. They need to buy into the idea of spending hours learning French so that they are motivated to come to class and participate actively in all of your FSL activities and games.

It will pay off in the long run to spend a few minutes ensuring that students know the purpose of their second language journey!

4) Games and Routines That Can Be Used ALL YEAR LONG!

I am often asked what games to teach French beginners? The BEST piece of advice that I can give you is to focus on simple language games that you can modify and use all year long!

This will save you so much time because rather than spending 5 minutes explaining every game, you will only need to remind students of the rules and explain the modification.

One of my favourite games to introduce during the first week of school is called Pamplemousse.

I have an entire blog post explaining how to play Pamplemousse as well as two other games that you can modify to play all year long! Check out that post HERE!

If you want to save yourself a TON of prep and planning time, be sure to snag my First Week of French unit! It’s over 50 pages of detailed lesson plans, games, activities and even an assessment. Click HERE to add it to your cart!