Category Archives: Activities and Games

In this game players are dealt 5 cards to begin and place a card face up on the discard pile that is either the same verb (any form) or the same form (Je/Yo/Io/Ich, Tu/Tú/Tu/Du, etc.-any verb) as the top card on the discard pile. When the card is placed down, the player must say a complete sentence in the target language using the verb form.

To make it a little more interesting I also put special cards that a player can choose to play:

• “arrêt” changes the verb
• “sauter” skips the next player
• “inverser” changes the direction of play
• “+2” requires the next player to pick up 2 cards.

The first player to use all of his/her cards wins the game. A very interactive way for small groups of students to review verb forms and practice speaking in complete sentences.

You can download full French and Spanish versions of this card game below:

• French Regular Verbs
• French ER Verbs
• French IR Verbs
• French RE Verbs
• French Irregular Verbs
• French Accent and Spelling Change Verbs
• Spanish Regular Verbs
• Spanish AR Verbs
• Spanish ER Verbs
• Spanish IR Verbs
• Spanish Irregular Verbs
• Spanish Stem-Changing Verbs

Once students have seen (in writing) or heard verb forms in context the next step is to begin producing language.  This activity is an effective follow-up and extension to comprehensible input activities that helps students to see that they can recognize forms and patterns that they have seen in context.

If you are moving away from direct instruction of verb conjugations, try this out with students. If they have had sufficient contextualized exposure to the verb forms and meanings you will  see that students can choose the accurate form based on what “sounds right.”

When this happens we know that they are progressing in their proficiency and moving toward accurate language output. This activity also supports students as they level up to the Intermediate Low Proficiency Level where they are creating sentences on their own.

These French and Spanish activities are done in Powerpoint and the animation is all set up.  All you have to do is click.

There are two possible ways to use these Powerpoints:

• Students write sentences based on the subject and infinitive on each slide when an infinitive and a subject pronoun are revealed. Students see 4 possible verb forms. An additional click reveals the correct form for students to verify their form along with question words so that students can write a complete sentence with the verb form.

• Another option is for two students to go to the screen (where powerpoint is projected) and each one has a fly swatter. The activity begins just as the first possibility, but in this version the first student to slap the correct verb form says a complete sentence with the accurate verb form once the form is revealed and the question word appears.