Okay, fellow French teacher – today I am about to spill the TEA on my favourite daily routine in French class – question du jour! This is an AWESOME way to get your French class to communicate in French in a safe, structured, and meaningful way every single day. If you are looking for fun ideas on encouraging French communication – you’re going to love this daily routine.
Feel free to pause and watch the video below if you have 15 minutes. If not, go ahead and scroll down to read all about this awesome daily routine in French class.
What is question du jour?
Question du jour is a French bell ringer-type activity. It’s quite simple. At the time of taking attendance, every Core French student in your class answers a question. These questions are a wide variety of French conversation starters.
When and how did I begin question du jour in my classroom?
During the 2020-2021 school year, our school year was divided into quarter semesters. Each quarter was roughly 10 weeks long. In the first quarter of the year, we were in-person for 5 weeks and teaching online the other 5 weeks.
I could not figure out how to connect with my students. By the time I got to know them, they were moving on to their next two classes. It was so frustrating!
During the last quarter of the school year, I was desperate to change things up.
So I began to ask my students lighthearted and silly questions during attendance. The question and the whole discussion occurred in English. I really didn’t care about French – I was desperate to get to know them and break the intense ice.
The questions were a hit. Soon, my students were suggesting questions. We were getting to know each other and we were laughing together. It was fantastic.
I was going to be teaching the same group of students the following year. Therefore, over the summer I created 50 beginner-friendly French speaking prompts. I included French vocabulary that beginner French students should be using. I focused basic sentence structures, such as “aimes-tu”, “est-ce que tu préfères”, etc.
I also ensured that all slides had visual support so that we did not have to rely on English to communicate.
What do you need for question du jour?
You are going to need sets of French-speaking prompts for question du jour that are suitable for the levels of French you teach.
If you are looking for question du jour resources that are already made, I have several sets you can purchase from TPT. You are welcome to create your own French-speaking prompts. You can also create them in collaboration with your students.
These question du jour prompts are ideal for beginner French students. They include a mix of silly, fun questions like the one you see and also practical questions.
Part one shelters sentence structures so that students become proficient in communicating about themselves in the present tense.
These French conversation starters are ideal for intermediate French students. These prompts introduce students to a wide range of sentence structures in a number of different tenses.
This question du jour resource is a mix of practice & fun!
Along with my intermediate question du jour prompts, I also use these passé composé prompts with my intermediate (second-year) students intermittently with the ones above.
I do this BEFORE (like waaay before) I teach passé composé explicitly to those students.
Results : students actually know how to communicate in the past tense before they get the explicit grammar lesson. So the explicit grammar actually makes sense! BOOM!
There all sorts of themes and topics you can try out with different age groups and levels! Again, feel free to make your own. You do not have to purchase mine. I just wanted to show you all of the different types I’ve created over the last two years.
Why is question du jour so successful with Core French students?
It’s a safe activity for ALL students
One of the major reasons why this activity is such a successful French routine is that it is SO safe. Regardless of whether students are introverted, neurodivergent, or afraid of speaking in French in class, this routine is structured and safe. Students know exactly how it’s going to roll out each class.
For some students, it may be the only time in class when they speak in French in front of the class. This is definitely something to celebrate!
After a week or two, students really begin to feel comfortable with the format.
Repetition, repetition, repetition
Another major reason why these French conversation starters are so successful is that there is so much built-in repetition. Every class, students have the opportunity to hear 29 other students answer the question.
Every day that we do this, their comprehension gets better as does their vocab retention and pronunciation.
Let’s talk about the results
Before we talk about results, you should know that those *original* grade 8s that I started question du jour with are going into Grade 11 at the time of me writing this post.
We did question du jour every single class in Grades 9 & 10.
My students picked up SO MUCH vocabulary
I do not make my students memorize lists of French vocabulary. I do not find that to be effective. I teach vocabulary in context.
That being said, I was constantly amazed at my students’ ability to recall SO MUCH vocabulary they had seen in question du jour. It was incredible.
Students were correctly using a wide variety of sentence structures without explicit instruction. They just got it!
In addition to French vocabulary recall, I was also surprised at how my students were ACCURATELY using a wide variety of sentence structures in present and past tenses.
When these guys were in Grade 8, I decided I wasn’t going to teach French grammar explicitly. I decided I was going to try teaching my classes in a more French immersion-style.
So imagine my surprise that my French 8 students are correctly conjugating verbs because they actually have a solid understanding of how sentences are formed in the French language.
I was truly so amazed and so impressed.
Classroom community – with each question du jour, we got to know each other more
Another massive pro of question du jour was that we continued to get to know each other with every prompt. We laughed together, we learned about each others’ food/clothing preferences, etc.
For example, this past year I learned that 95% of my students DO NOT make their beds before school. As a matter of fact, a small but notable group make their beds BEFORE going to sleep!
My students had the best pronunciation out of all of the grades I’ve taught
Prior to question du jour, I really struggled with teaching students how to pronounce French sound patterns correctly. As an early career French teacher, that’s exactly what I did.
I explicitly taught French sound patterns.
It just didn’t work.
Question du jour and the repetition it provided meant that this group of students had the best pronunciation of all of the grades that I’ve taught so far in my career. Now, question du jour can’t take all of the credit for this as I also switched to a different style of teaching during this time, but it can take about half the credit!
