Warm-up: Conversation, not Interrogation!

Level: Elementary through Advanced.

Immediate Application: Any level, any book

Learning Styles: Auditory

Skills: Speaking and listening

Structures: Tailor to needs.

Functions: Asking and answering questions; general polite conversation

Learning Styles:

Good for students who like to speak and listen. Not an analytical exercise.

Background:

Task is easily tailored to students' background in French.

Materials Needed:

Two sets of questions, one per student. If you have 20 students, number one set of questions 1a.-10a, the next group 1b-10b. Make sure that corresponding questions (1a and 1b, 2a and 2b etc.) do not correspond in theme. For example: 1a: "Combien de fois par semaine manges-tu de la viande rouge?" and 1b: "A ton avis, qu'est-ce qu'il faut pour être heueruex?" If students have had enough French (by second semester) make one set of questions banal and concrete, the other open-ended, and somewhat philosophical.

If you have an odd number of students, or if someone is absent, you'll want to prepare for one group of three by, for example, writing a question # 9c.

Mix up the questions, then distribute.

Overview / Preparation:

Directions to students: [Instructions would be given verbally, in French.]

I'm giving each of you a question. Don't show it to anyone.
Do you understand your question?
If you have question #1a, you will find the student who has question #1b, same for number 2a, etc.
Once you find your partner, begin a polite conversation. The object of the conversation is to ask your question without rudely changing the subject. Your partner will be trying to do the same thing with an unrelated question.
Take about five minutes.

Group Task:

Students get up and find partners, then begin conversations.
Teacher circulates to get a sense of how much time is needed to progress--if the conversation are going well I allow as much as 10 minutes.
Teacher should not intervene much at all. Since this is a warm-up, error correction is not the point.
Stop students once most groups have gotten to both questions.

Whole Group Task: Follow-up:

Ask who had a hard time making bringing in their questions
Ask who had a silly question. Who had an provocative question? Have a student or two ask another student the question s/he asked his/her partner. If you have time, allow for a whole-group debate.

Expansion:

You could seed the last question so that it leads into the next exercise, grammar review, etc.
Use this activity to change ingrained seating/pairing patterns for the rest of the day.

Comments:

This worked very well as a tension-reliever. Students enjoyed the "tougher" questions, which I based on recently learned, basic "education" vocabulary: "La musique, est-elle importante pour la société?"; "Pourquoi étudier les Beaux Arts si l'on veut être médecin?"