Le jeu de la bouteille (Spin the bottle)

Spin the Bottle in Class?  What?!

Photo from http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/30092.gif

So for my formal observation I had this last week I decided to go for two riskier activities.  This first being Freeze Frame (read about here) and the second being a simple review game that the kids love.  Of course the first time you play the kids are a little weirded out by the fact that you are going to play spin the bottle in class.  You can assure them there will be no kissing or making out in class today though!  

There are two ways you can do this for setup.

1.You make up the commands or questions. (Takes prep time but you are insuring the students are practicing exactly what you want)  Print them out in a large font and then cut each question/command into individual slips of paper.  Fold them up and put them in a container.

2. The students make up the commands or questions. (Takes more time but allows them to get creative and reinforces their writing skills!)  I usually have each student write 2 (but I have unusually small classes) but you could do more (probably no more than 4 though for sake of time)

How to play:

If you had students write their own commands/questions have them put them in the cup/container that goes with their group.  Sometimes I switch the cups up and no group gets their original questions/commands.  The students liked this as they get to see what their classmates wrote.  If you wrote the commands then just have the questions/commands separated equally into the containers before the activity.

Split students into groups of 5-6.  Each group gets a container with questions/commands and a bottle. (I prefer liter or 2-liter pop bottles and Perrier glass bottles)

Have a rule of who goes first.  I usually do birthday or age rules (they then have to discuss in French who has the closest birthday date or age and this reviews numbers and dates!)

Once they have figured out who goes first, that person spins the bottle.  When the bottle stops on someone the spinner takes a question or command and and asks their classmate that the bottle stopped on the question.  The other student must then answer the question in French or complete the action if it is a command.  If the student cannot answer the question or complete the command they can ask their classmates for help (in French).  Every question or command must be completed though!  The person that the bottle landed on gets to spin the bottle if they were able to answer the question or complete the command.  If not, the original spinner must spin again.  Play continues for as long as you would like it to.  I usually only play for about 15 minutes or so depending on how the students are reacting to the game.

Different Versions:

• To practice inviting people to events I had students write out 2 rejections and 1 acceptance.  They put these into the cup and instead of the spinner pulling out a question, the spinner would have to make-up an invitation for the person the bottle stopped on.  That person then pulls out on of the replies and reads it to the spinner.  If it is a rejection the spinner must spin again until they find someone who can go to their activity.  When someone accepts the invite they become the new spinner.
• Prepositions: Have certain props for each group and have students write 2 sentences about where those props could be in the room using prepositions.  The spinner reads one of the slips of paper and puts the prop where the paper is says it is at.  Then the spinner spins the bottle and asks the person where the object is at.  If the person gets it right they get to keep the slip of paper and then spin the bottle.  This is a competition to see who can win the most slips of paper by then end of the game. 
• Commands:  To practice the imperative, have students write funny commands for their classmates and play spin the bottle.  The spinner gets to read the command to the person the bottle lands on and that person must act out whatever the command is.  This could also be done as a competition and have students try to win the slip of paper as they play.
• Truth or Dare + Spin the Bottle:  To mix commands and questions for an overall review you can mix-up these two classic games into one game.  You will need two containers for each group though.  One container to hold commands (the Dare container) and the other to hold questions (The Truth container).  When a bottle lands on a person they get to choose between the two options and try to win their slip of paper.  

Well hope you like these ideas!  I will update the Different Versions section as I come up with more ways to change up this simple game.  If you have any ideas or comments or you try it in your classroom I would love to hear about it!

TPRS Troubles

So TPRS is a fantastic technique that I believe has great merits in the FL classroom.  On the other hand I have been getting bored and frustrated with this technique.  After having talked to my Spanish colleague I figured I would go out of my comfort zone and try to find or makeup activities that could extend the TPRS technique.  Here are some of the issues I was having with the method:

1. I am the one talking for the majority of the class period.  Students will get one or two word phrases for ideas for the story, but for the most part it is me that is talking (Which I know they need to hear the language as much as possible but in a 50 minute class the technique leaves little time for my students to talk after we spin a story together)

2. Students (and myself) are losing interest in the stories and the entire routine.  We have told 10 stories now and it is only half -way through the year!

3.  I have a hard time balancing the stories with the required content.  I get behind in the curriculum content often because we spend 2 or more days on TPRS stuff.  Luckily our stories do have phrases and grammar that show up later in the textbook so it is like front-loading, but I am behind at the moment on where I should be for the my class in the curriculum.

4.  We have pre-written stories and as the class and I spin the story I hate having to direct their story to be more like the written story as this does not really feel like their story in the end.  Also, I think the students are starting to think that it doesn't matter what they suggest for the story telling as I will direct the story a certain way anyways.

With that said, here are the things I really like about the method:

1. The students get to be funny and creative using the language in context.

2. Students get to hear a lot of target language in one class period and it isn't just grammar and new vocabulary the entire class period.

3.  It gives teachers a non-traditional method to do grammar highlights instead of having the students do exercises or worksheets out of a book.

4.  Students get to learn vocabulary that is important/interesting to them by asking for certain words to add to the story.

So after looking online for the knowledge and advice of some TPRS pros I decided to try to come up with an activity that would involve story telling but not have me do any of the speaking. Here is what I came up with:

FREEZE FRAME!

The activity is played as a class (but you could do it in small groups of 5-6).  You pick a random student to be an actor and another student to be the first narrator.  These two students stand in the front of the classroom and begin a story.  The narrator starts telling the story and the actor has to listen and act out whatever the narrator is saying.  (I did a practice run through of this activity in English so that they had an idea of what it would be like in French and this seemed to really help the students understand what was expected of them)  The narrator is required to speak at least 1 full sentence before anyone is allowed to interrupt them.  Why would people interrupt them you ask?  Because as the narrator is telling the story the class is listening and trying to find a way to insert their own ideas into the story.  They do this by calling out "Freeze!" ("Congèlez" en français).  When the student calls out "Freeze" the narrator stops talking and the actor continues to do the action that they were doing last.  The student that calls freeze then comes up to the front of the room and takes the place of the narrator and continues the story adding in new actions/details and the actor must follow along.  I required that every student in the class must be the narrator at least once and that when everyone has been the narrator it is the actor that gets to decide the fate of the story.  As a side note I did offer myself up as a tag-team helper if a narrator got stuck in front of the class and ran out of things to say.  The students were warned though that if a narrator had to tag-team me into the story the entire class would have a pop quiz right after the Freeze Frame activity.  This was just a little motivation for the class to not allow one of their classmates to get stranded up front without anything to say.  If a student came up front and could not put together an entire sentence and was just standing their I would start making my ways towards them to give them the opportunity to tag me in but this usually just spurred the student to get their thoughts in order and say at least one sentence. None of my classes had to tag me in.

My first group of students did a pretty good job with this.  They focused on the vocabulary that we were learning at the time so their story was not as cohesive or as interesting as I was hoping but they did speak all in French for about 15-20 minutes without my help.  My second group of French 1 students though rocked it!  Their story was cohesive and continued smoothly.  They used a lot of other vocabulary instead of what I was aiming for, but I didn't care about that when I had 4 students not using their note cards and just improvising completely in French! (I assigned them homework of writing a few sentences down that could be added to the story on a note card and then they could use that notecard if they needed when they went up to add to the story) This group spoke completely in French for about 30 minutes and really kept the story going!  I was giddy with excitement all the way home that night as I was so proud of my students!

What I liked about the activity:

1. This gives me a chance to hear everyone speak and grade their proficiency level.

2.  Everyone is included in the story telling process.

3.  It requires students to be able to listen and comprehend the story and then think of ways to extend what they are understanding with more details.

4.  It allows some of the more advanced students to push themselves (my improvisers!) but it doesn't put too much pressure on my students with special needs.

If you have questions about this activity or you do it in your classroom I would love to hear about it! I did this activity with a French 1 group about half way through the year but this would be a great activity for more advanced students so that they could practice the different tenses (maybe have signs for the actor to use to show past, present, and future)

Thanks for reading and hope to hear some ideas/feedback/or experiences with this method!