3 Zero-Prep MFL Games for French, German & Spanish Lessons (Vocabulary, Speaking & Phonics)

Running low on energy or planning time? These three zero-prep MFL games are perfect for French, German and Spanish lessons across all year groups and ability levels.

Whether you need a quick vocabulary activity, a speaking game, or a phonics exercise, these no-preparation classroom games deliver maximum engagement — with zero extra work for you.

1. Corner Game. This has always been my favourite game and literally needs NO prep (except a vocab list if your brain really isn't functioning at all!)
   
   Play as follows:
   - Pick 4 students and send each one to stand in a corner of the room.
   - The teacher says a word or phrase in the target language (TL).
   - The first person to shout out the correct translation of the phrase moves clockwise to the next corner.
   - If there is a student there, that student is knocked out and has to sit down.
   - If the corner is empty, everyone is ‘safe’ and the teacher calls out the next word or phrase.
   - The winner is the student who knocks out all of the other students.
   - Use the rest of the class to ‘referee’ who shouted the word out first.
   
   NB Don’t get students to put their hands up, as this doesn’t show who actually knew the word first and encourages students to stand with their hand up before the teacher/nominated student has even said the word/phrase!
   
   
2. Hot Seat. All you need for this one is a whiteboard (it doesn't need to be interactive, but it does need to not be mini), a pen, a chair and some students!
   
   Play this one as follows:
   - Choose one student to be in the “hot seat”.
   - They sit in front of the whiteboard with their back to the board.
   - Write a word (in the TL) that you’ve recently learnt on the whiteboard.
   - The rest of the class have to describe the word without saying any elements of the word (like ‘Taboo’).
   - They can do this in English or the TL, depending on level.
   - Set a timer for 1-2 minutes and see how many words they can get in the time.
   
   
3. The SSC Caterpillar. If you're new around here, I'd like to introduce you to this little guy (see the picture above), and if you've been here for a while, then I'd like to reacquaint you with him! Oh, and SSC stands for "Sound Symbol Correspondence" (aka phonics), for those of you who aren't up to their eyeballs in new GCSE jargon!
   
   Play this as follows:
   - Say a word that contains an SSC you have recently taught and write it on the caterpillar’s head.
   - Ask a student to think of another word with the same sound. Write it on the next part of the caterpillar’s body.
   - Go around the class adding more words until the caterpillar is full.
   
   Here’s a link to the caterpillar, if you want to use him in your lessons: https://pixabay.com/vectors/caterpillar-crawler-insect-cute-2028028/