This is one of those activities that I honestly can’t remember at this point if I adapted it from someone else or if I made it up myself. At the beginning of the year, when students are learning to say where they’re from, it gets pretty boring after they ask each other once where they are from and then magically they are all from the same town. This activity allows students to use that same vocabulary but in a way that keeps things interesting. Each student will assume the identity of one of the people in the image above. I used to use celebrities, but I kept having trouble finding celebrities they would know for each nationality. Then they will, with their partners, have a dialogue that goes something like this:
Student A: Tu es américain ? (Are you American?)
Student B: Non, je suis canadien. (No, I’m Canadian.)
A: Tu es de Sudbury ? (Are you from Sudbury?)
B: Non, je suis de Toronto. (No, I’m from Toronto.)
A: Tu es Bobo ? (Are you Bobo?)
B: Oui, je suis Bobo. (Yes, I am Bobo)
This is kind of hard to explain to students in French, so I just have a student come up to the front and model the dialogue. Before they begin, I reinforce the meaning of “de” (of) and when you can and can’t use it. This is one of the concepts I am looking for them to practice in this activity. The great thing about it is if some students finish early, they can just repeat and choose different people.
How might you use this activity in your classroom? What might you change about it to suit your students’ needs?
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