Foreign Language House

The last lesson before Thanksgiving break can be challenging in a middle school or high school world language class.  The kids are so ready for a break.  (Teachers, too!)  You could give a test, but then you have grading to do over the holiday.  Ugh.  Instead, try our activity that takes full advantage of  your students’ preoccupation with the imminent vacation.  You’ll get them talking in the target language in no time!

Conversational Activities About Thanksgiving Break is available in French and Spanish.  

You’ll get your secondary French and Spanish students talking with each other about their Thanksgiving weekend plans.  These partner and circulating speaking tasks will maximize the participation in your classroom.  All of these activities are in their Microsoft Word .doc form so that you can customize the directions and vocabulary to fit the needs of your students.  (i.e. You might want to isolate just –er verbs for French I, or only verbs using avoir in the past tense, etc.)  You can use just one activity, or all four, depending on your needs.  In this download, you will find:

A/B partner interviews using the immediate future tense.  What are you going to do over Thanksgiving break?

• Copy “A – Part 1” back-to-back with “A – Part 2.”  Distribute to half of the class.

• Copy “B – Part 1” back-to-back with “B – Part 2.”  Distribute to half of the class.

• Students work individually to write the answers to Part 1.  I’m going to . . . / I’m not going to . . . 

• When Part 1 is complete, students work with a partner.  There must be one A and one B.  Students ask their partner the questions in Part 2, checking off the answers given.

• Teacher follows up by asking individuals questions, or by choosing partners to demonstrate various question – answer combinations.  Ask follow-up questions, too.  Where are you going to travel?  What else are you going to eat?  What movie are you going to see?  Which football teams are going to play?  Who is going to win the game?  Etc.

“Find Someone Who” circulating activity using the immediate future.

• Students circulate around the room, asking classmates if they are going to do various activities.  Students write down the name of a classmate who responds affirmatively, then move on to talk to someone new.

• Teacher follows up by asking individuals who they found for various activities. “Qui . . . ?”  Another fun variation is to play HUMAN BINGO.  The teacher must participate in the activity, collecting the names of students are going to do various activities.  When time is up and everyone returns to their seats, the teacher reads the answers s/he collected during the activity, such as “Suzanne is going to watch football, Jean is going to watch a parade, David is going to travel, or Anne is going to go shopping.”  Students who have a matching name/activity written on their paper win one point.  The student with the most points matching the teacher wins!