Are you a Core French and/or French Immersion teacher looking for ideas and activities for a rich, meaningful, and engaging French food unit? Let’s dive into some engaging activities I do with my own students!
Who is this French food unit for?
These French activities and resources are ideal for novice to intermediate French students. I teach high school French classes so these activities are most ideal for this age group.
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The qualities of an engaging French food unit
First, you must establish what your goals are for your French food unit. Here are my own personal goals :
- to have students communicate their personal preferences
- to increase student proficiency in the French language
- to teach about diverse francophone and non-francophone foods, dishes, and food-practices
Teach about Francophone cheese!
One of my favourite activities for a novice-level French food unit is to read about Francophone cheese.
I keep the French reading comprehension article super simple.
I’ve never done this, but I’d love to have students bring in cheese and do a class cheese-tasting workshop! How much fun would that be?
With each different cheese, students taste, they have to describe (from a set of vocab) the taste, texture, and flavour.
French food high-frequency word wall labels
As I teach high-frequency sentence structures, I like to put them word wall labels on my main bulletin board for students to see and use.
Begin with input, then slowly shift to output
When planning a French food unit, I ensure that the first 60% of my unit is filled with rich, meaningful input.
This means that I am planning meaningful French reading and French listening opportunities for my students.
I slowly make the shift to output somewhere around the 60% mark.
Explore Francophone dishes
If you know anything about me, you know that I love to teach about Francophone cultures. Near the end of my French food unit, I have students research and describe a Francophone dish as part of their final summative task.
Have your students describe their own personal preferences
Here’s another fun activity where students talk about their personal preferences when it comes to food.
Play French food bingo
I’m not sure what it is about bingo, but my students are wild about it!
Food bingo is such a great way to practice food vocabulary during a French food unit.
Try question du jour prompts
Question du jour is a great way to build in scaffolded and structured output. It’s also a fantastic way to get students to talk about their personal preferences.
Combine French games with French reading comprehension and try trivia
I love to turn French reading comprehension into a game. Playing French food-themed trivia is a great way to combine listening, speaking, games, AND culture. A win-win!
