Verb Race: Fun and Engaging FSL Game

Most of my Grade 8's don't love French class. I think it's because they didn't get enough exposure to it in their Grade 5-7 years and by Grade 8, they are supposed to know a lot more than they actually know.

I try to make it fun and interesting for them, as I LOVE teaching French, but it wasn't working in my favour until I tried Verb Race.

We've been working on regular verbs since September, but the kids are still stuck on the conjugations. A lot of my kids play sports, so I decided to turn practicing verbs into a competition.

I split my kids up into two teams. On the white board, I wrote the personal pronouns je, tu, il, elle, nous, vous, ils, elles for both teams and a space for them to translate the verbs.

One at a time, each team had to run up to the board and fill in one of the spaces. They could either translate the verb or conjugate it for one of the pronouns. The team who completed the relay first, with the most correct answers, was the winner.

Rules:
- Each team gets one whiteboard marker.
- Only one person from each team can come to the board at a time.
- The whiteboard marker had to stay on the ledge of the board - you can't pass it to the next teammate.
- You can only fix or add one item per turn. If you change an incorrect answer from another teammate, you can't add another answer.
- Lock in your answers for the team by handing the teacher the marker. Once both teams have locked in their answers, I check the first to lock in first. If they have all correct answers, they win. If they don't, I'll check the other team's answers. If the second team to lock in has more correct, they are the winner. If the second team is tied with the first team, the first team wins.

When I told them the class was over and they had to move on to their Applied Skills (Home Ec, Business Ed., and Woodshop - classes they absolutely love), they were sad and asked to stay longer!

They've also asked every day this week during Advisory block to play Verb Race!

Do you play something similar? Do you have any strategies for helping kids learn their French verb endings? Let me know in the comments below.

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