Product reviews for Fun Learning Activities for Modern Foreign Languages

I was excited to receive a review copy of Hunton's book, 'Fun Learning Activities for Modern Foreign Languages', especially, as MFL-specific publications are relatively rare and always a welcome addition to a language teacher's book collection. On opening the book, I particularly liked how Hunton explains his philosophy of teaching in the introduction where he creates a solid pedagogical foundation of his classroom ideology. It is very much linked to the school of active learning and the tasks perfectly mirror this. The huge range of Vocab Fun Learning Activities (VFLAs) and Fun Learning Activities (FLAs) are a fantastic resource especially for practitioners starting out, that will certainly motivate and engage learners and energise the teacher. 

Hunton's book is packed full of practical ideas. From very energetic ones, such as VFLA The Mexican Crazy Card Wave, to highly competitive ones, such as VFLA Boards, Bells and Textbook Tasks. I can see the book sitting well on the bookshelves of NQTs or recently qualified teachers who can use it to develop their teaching toolkit. It is also a must-have in a departmental or staff library, to be used as a useful toolkit for professional development and the planning of schemes of learning. The real strength of this book is how Hunton demonstrates how many non-MFL specific activities can be adapted to become VFLAs like The Drama Game. This book will enable less experienced teachers to move away from what they may have been shown at university to developing their own activities. 

The book is well structured, as each VFLA and FLA has a short introduction of where it came from, how it is 'played' and the resources that are needed. In addition Hunton also offers variations to each one of them, which is a real encouragement for the reader to try out and adapt. I put 'played' in inverted commas earlier, as Hunton points out that his VFLAs and FLAs are not games and he is very clear that each of them serves the purpose "to expand students' core body of knowledge". Yet, and that is its strength, every VFLA and FLA is geared towards motivating learners acquiring specific skills.



The book does not lend itself well to being a coffee-table style book which you can dip in and out of easily, however, you can find real nuggets of advice if you look. Ideas that particularly resonated with my existing practice were FLA Dictation, Dictation, Retranslation and FLA Pull the Switch. To summarise, 'Fun Learning Activities for Modern Foreign Languages' is a great learning book especially for teachers new to the profession and a really useful reference for those a bit longer in the tooth.