Battleships
Overview
Purpose
Vocabulary reinforcement
Learning outcome
Students can recognise and respond to specific vocabulary in French.
Skills
- Listening
- Speaking
Type
Pairs activity
Related units in Oui! kit
- Unité 6 Qu'est-ce que c'est?
- Unité 9 Tu as un animal chez toi?
Instructions
Instead of the number coordinates used in the traditional battleships game, this variation uses French names of animals and colours.
Materials
To download the grids template, select from the following Word or PDF formats:
- Battleships template for 'Battleships' activity (Word, 39KB)
- Battleships template for 'Battleships' activity (PDF, 12KB)
Make one copy for each student.
Steps
- Divide students into pairs.
- Without their partner seeing, students colour in four ships anywhere on to the top grid, using the same numbers of squares as the ships listed below the grids.
- The two students take turns to try to 'hit' each other's ships, by calling the coordinates in French, for example, "le mouton blanc".
- If a ship is hit, the student who owns it must say "oui", and both students put a cross onto that square. If there is no hit, the receiving student says "non" and their partner draws a circle in that square so they know not to call it again.
- When all the squares covered by a ship have been hit, the student who owns it must tell their partner which ship has gone.
- The activity continues until all the ships are hit. The winner is the player with the last surviving ship.
Tips
- Before play starts, revise that the position of French adjectives is (generally) after the noun, and that the gender (feminine or masculine) of the adjective must match that of the noun. For example:
- le lapin blanc (the white rabbit) – since le lapin is a masculine noun, it needs the masculine form of the adjective blanc (white)
- la souris blanche (the white mouse) – since la souris is a feminine noun, it needs the feminine form of the adjective blanche (white).
- Model correct pronunciation of all the words for the students before play begins.
- Listen to the students as they play to check and correct their pronunciation.
Variations
- Once students have learnt the French version of the sound each animal makes, add it into the game by having the students make the sound of the animal when a ship in that column is 'hit'.
- Adapt for use with any unit by changing the words for the coordinates, for example, use numbers and the days of the week, or times and activities.
Further learning
Students respond to the specific vocabulary by drawing the required animal in that colour. This can be done in pairs or as a team relay. For the relay version, the leader of each team calls out a colour and an animal, and their team member whose turn it is races up to the board and draws the animal with that colour.
Language to use
- On y va
Let's go - Mes bateaux
My boats - Encore une fois
Once more - Tes bateaux
Your boats - Très bien
Very good