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Happy families

Overview

Purpose

To recognise and respond to questions in French that include the use of titles.

Learning outcome

Students will understand and use correct titles for people.

Skills
Type

Group activity

Related units in Oui! kit

Instructions

The object of this card game is to gain complete card 'families'. There are four cards in each family (mother, father, sister, and brother) and five families in the deck of cards (the Pompidou, Bardot, La Croix, Chiraq, and Butel families). Four players is the ideal group size for this game.

Materials

To download the set of five templates for the card 'families', select from the following Word or PDF formats:

PDF help

One deck of cards (containing five family sets of four cards) is required for each group of four players.

Steps
  1. Cards are shuffled and four cards are dealt to each player. The remaining eight cards are placed in a stack in the centre of the table.
  2. Players take turns (moving clockwise) to ask someone in the group for a card that they need to complete a family, for example, "Est-ce que tu as Monsieur La Croix/Madame La Croix/la fille La Croix/le garçon La Croix?"
  3. Players respond "Oui" or "Non". If the answer is "Oui", they must hand over the card and the player who received the card gets another turn. If the response is "Non", the player has to pick up a card from the centre pile and play moves to the next student.
  4. Complete family sets are placed to one side and play continues.
  5. The winner is the player with the most family sets when all the cards are used up.

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Tips

Encourage use of French during the game with the rule that cards don't have to be handed over if they are not asked for in French.

Note that these cards could also be used when students discuss and describe their own family in the Oui! kit Unité 7 Ma famille.

Variation

For a group of up to six students to play, or to lengthen the game, the playing deck needs to be increased. Students could be involved by designing playing cards of their own, using authentic French family names such as:

Alternatively, the deck could be photocopied again and colours added to distinguish the new cards from the original ones.

Further learning

Develop a set of templates of four objects, which students could colour in and use to play a similar game – instead of people forming the families, the aim would be to collect all four colours of a certain object 'family'.

For example, the object 'families' could be suitcases, tables, books, and hats, and a typical request by a player could be:


Language to use

Following is a possible dialogue between two students during a game:

Student A: Est-ce que tu as Monsieur La Croix?
Do you have Mr La Croix?
Student B: Oui, voici Monsieur La Croix.
Yes, here is Mr La Croix.
Student A: Merci
Thank you
Useful phrases

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