High School Teaching Methods
That Work !
Presented by:
Kathi Koepke
Arrowhead High School - Hartland, WI
koepke@ahs.k12.wi.us
WAFLT Fall Conference 2010
Projects
 Color Book / Adjective Book
Have the students create a small book using colors or other adjectives. The books must
have a central theme and the students must have a minimum of 10 pages, 10 objects
and 10 colors/adjectives. The students must present to class when finished. (levels 1/2)
 Impressionism
Students choose an impressionistic artist. Then, they must present their artist in some
fashion. They have to give a basic biography of the person, examples of their work,
describe their examples, and discuss the artist’s techniques. Then, they have the option
of doing this via a power point, children’s story or a recreation. Everyone must supply
the same information in some fashion and if they choose to do a recreation, they pick
one of their artist’s paintings and they recreate it and then also discuss why and how.
This is all done in the target language. (lev.3)
 Backpack Trip
This is an extensive project encompassing many different topics. Students work in
groups and they are given 1200Euros/dollars to use for a 2 week trip. They must travel
to a min. of 4 different cities in France (they may travel to other countries, but that is in
addition to the 4 cities). Then, they must find hotels, train tickets, airline tickets and
what to do in each of their cities. Everything is real. They include everything in a
powerpoint. Throughout this project, students are learning hotel, airline and train
vocabulary. They are also graded on giving and receiving hotel and train reservations.
They also must include a packing list that is realistic because all they have is a backpack.
Food and entrance fees don’t have to be included in the $1200. Everything is done in
French and all is presented at the end of the project. (levels 4/5)
 Create A Business
Students work in groups and must create a business. This is another extensive project
and the students are learning valuable tools and also vocabulary and grammar at the
same time. All of this is included in the project: student conducted interviews, CVs,
business letters, job ads, commercials, paper ads and a final presentation. Also, students
must research and do papers on French companies, American companies that work with
Francophone countries and they must pick an occupation that they are interested in and
tell me how French could be helpful in that field. Everything is collected and graded
throughout and then presented to all including a tangible product. (levels 4/5)
 Welcome Video
Students create a welcome video that can be shown to freshmen. The video must
include the “in’s and out’s” of the school. The “must-knows” and all of the basics. (levels
3/4)
 My Community
Students create a video of their community. In groups, they must go around their
community and make a video of different places they go. Discussing in French where
they go, what they do there, who they go with, etc. You can also have them do a little
conversation at each place – something typical for the location. If a video is not possible,
students could just take pictures and make a powerpoint and present it for the class.
They could also recreate a conversation for each place, while “standing” in front of each
location. (level 2)
 Market Place
The classroom becomes an open air market. Each student is responsible for creating a
stand in the market. They may sell anything that would typically be found in a market.
They must have tangible products. (I give them extra points if they actually hand out
items that the customers can keep.) If they can’t bring in the actual products, they must
have color printed pictures that students can “buy”. This is done over 2 class days. On
each day, half of the class are customers and the other half are the stand owners. The
customers have Euros to use and the clerks must make change and have signs stating
their prices. The customers also have a paper they must fill out, explaining where they
went, what they spent, what they bought, etc. This is a checklist for me as well .
Students are graded on their presentations, speaking and listening. (level 2)
 Doctor’s Office
Students learn proper vocabulary for the doctor’s office. Each student must have some
“problem” or reason that they are there. Four or five students are “waiting” in the
waiting room and they all have an appointment at the same time. They must persuade
each other as to why they deserve to see the doctor first. The rest of the class decides
who had the best reason. The students are graded on their speaking and listening and
the student that “gets to see the doctor first” gets extra points. (level 4)
 Real Estate Agent
Students look at actual real estate listings from various French (Spanish, etc) countries.
They study the vocabulary and create a listing of their own. With partners, they will
create a “blue print” of the house that they are trying to sell. In front of the class, one
student is the buyer and the other is the agent. The agent has to try to sell the house to
the buyer and give all of the proper information and take us on a “tour” of the house.
(level 1)
Technology
 Digital Pictures
You take pictures of different things that you are studying and put them on a website.
Have the students look at the pictures and discuss them. You could give them different
questions to answer or make it like a scavenger hunt. Also, you could just use it to teach
new vocabulary. This could be used for various levels.
 Google Earth
Give the students a worksheet with places to “visit” and have them compare and
contrast with other cities/countries.
 Blog / Wiki
Have the students write on a blog. Ask if you can create a blog on your school’s website
or use a different website (wiki) and have students respond to a certain question or
picture that you post or have them respond to each other. I have used wikispaces.com
(they have one for educators), but there are many to choose from. You can also post
news articles or videos and have students comment on them.
 Online pen pals / Skype
There are many websites that link up students as pen pals. Skype can also be used to
talk to people in other countries. Skype during class to add another dimension to the
lesson. Epals.com is a great site to look for pen pals around the world.
Smart Board Activities
 Games
There are, obviously, a lot of games to play using a Smart Board. Here are some
websites that I’ve found recently. My students love to play the Koosh game, Chutes and
Ladders and Connect Four.
http://exchange.smarttech.com/search.html?sbj=mfl - various templates
www.topmarks.co.uk/ - go to the languages and there are stories, rhymes and activities.
www.digitaldialects.com/ - interactive games in different languages
 Activities
Also, I like to post random pictures and have students create stories using the pictures.
They then must come up to the board, move the objects around as they are telling us
their story.
In addition, I will create a scene and the students must come up with questions (or just a
story) that would be asked to figure out what is happening. Then, they exchange their
questions with another group and answer those questions. Then, return the questions
and they will have a complete story to the scene. This is similar to a police investigation.
Games
 Hollywood Squares
Just like the game show. Have 2 teams of students and 9 students in 3 rows to make the
board (3 sit on desks, 3 on chairs, 3 on floor) each with a paper with an X or an O. Taking
turns, teams pick a “Hollywood Star”, teacher asks the “Star” a question, the “Star” can
either tell the truth or lie and the team must decide if the “Star” is correct or incorrect.
If they guess correctly, they get the “square” if not the other team gets it (except for the
win). Three in a row wins!
 Scrabble
Make a Scrabble board with little numbers and with partners, students must take turns
building words on the Scrabble board.
 Musical Chairs
Just like the regular game, but put post-it notes on the chairs with grammar/vocab and
when the students sit on the chair, they must answer the problem on a sheet of paper.
The student, who is the last one with a chair and all correct answers, wins!
 Apples to Apples
Just like the board game. You must make cards with nouns and cards with adjectives.
Students play in groups and they have 5 nouns in their hands. Taking turns, one person
is the judge and they flip over an adjective from the pile. Students have to choose from
their nouns which one they feel best is described by that adjective. The judge then
decides which noun is the best and that person gets the point. Students must always
have 5 nouns. Whoever has the most points at the end wins!
 Taboo/Charades/Pictionary
Give students a word and they can either say/act/draw out their word for their team to
guess. If they speak = 3 points act=2 points draw=1 point.
 Basketball
Take the bag out of your garbage can and split the class into teams. Ask a question and
the first team to “ring in” gets to answer. If they get it right, they get 1 point and a
chance to throw a basket. If they make it, they get an additional 2 points. You can make
the shooting line different distances for more points.
 Baseball/Football
Divide the class into 2 teams. Draw a baseball/football field on the board. Ask the teams
a question and the first to “ring in” gets to answer. If they answer correctly they can roll
a dice that equates to a certain hit/strike/out/touchdown/10yd run/interception/etc.
OR have 1 team ask the other team questions (like pitches) but, the team must know
the answer to the question that they are asking.
 Throw a ball in a circle/Categories
Put the class in a circle around the room. Give a topic of vocabulary and throw a ball to a
student. The student has to give a word in that topic and then throw it to another
student, if the student takes too long or repeats a word, they are out. After each
student gets out, change the topic of vocabulary.
 Build a mummy
With groups of 2-3, each group gets 1 roll of toilet paper and has 1 “mummy”, the
teacher says a body part and the students must wrap their mummy’s body part, without
using tape. The team who has the most covered at the end, wins!
 Comedy Sports – Improvisation!
- What are you doing? – With partners, students do actions and say different things.
- Switch Interview – Students are given a broad theme and conduct interviews
- Cards on Floor – A group of 3 students put on scene, all while picking up words off
of the ground and incorporating them into their scene
- Circle of Numbers – Students stand in a circle, looking down, and say numbers in
order, but can’t say a number at the same time.
 Guess Who
You can do this with pictures on a sheet of paper and partners take turns picking people
and describing them – just like the original game. Also, you can make it come to life and
have a student go out of the room. The rest of the class decides who that person will be.
The student comes back and either that student asks questions to the class to try to
figure out who they are or the class asks the student questions, until they figure out
who they are.
Songs
 Using songs to teach grammar is a fabulous tool. Students will sing them for years to come. Here
are a few French and Spanish songs. I also take my students « on the road » and we go to other
classrooms and sing to them – sometimes with instruments and dance moves 
- Faire – Conjugate to the song of “If you are happy and you know it”
- Avoir – Conjugate to the song of “Pink Panther”
- Prendre – Conjugate to the song of “Mary had a little lamb”
- Etre – Conjugate to the “Can Can”
- Estar – Conjugate to the song “If you are happy and you know it”
- Ser – Conjugate to the song “Pink Panther”
Communicative / Pair Practice
 Surveys of any topic are a great tool for students to use.
 Using dice to create sentences or stories
 In small groups, students create a story by each giving a sentence.
 Dinner party – Students are given 1 question and they go around asking the other students that
one question and answering the other questions. All of the students have different questions.
 Directions and Draw - Have students give directions to a partner and the partner has to draw
what the student says and then they check the work. This works well with prepositions of
placement, body parts, etc.
 Human Bingo – Each student has a bingo board. Each box has a statement/description. Students
must go around and find a person who matches the description or statement and put the name
in the box. Students try to get bingo!
 Sentence of the Day – Everyday, give students a word/phrase and everyone has to write 1
sentence using that word. The student who has the longest sentence, with no errors, is the
winner for the day. The purpose is to get the students to write longer sentences. Grade the
sentences with simply    According to the quality of the sentence and the number of
errors.