8 Simple French Listening Activities to Practice to Listening Comprehension

We all like to speak – and be heard. Little wonder then that we spend so much time focusing on learning and saying words in French. But, as any excellent communicator can tell you, listening is just as important as speaking.

French listening comprehension is a core part of the curriculum. It’s one of the foundational building blocks of learning a second language. After all, you’ve got to listen and learn from others before you can express yourself. The input always comes before the output.

Obviously, practice makes perfect. Adding some French listening activities into your classroom can transform your students’ abilities, giving them greater language skills – and the ability to learn on their own. Remember, the more they understand and the more vocabulary they have, the easier it will be for them to speak and write.

Here are my favourite French listening activities:

Top French Listening Activities for Comprehension

Listen and Colour

I’ll be honest—Listen & Colour might just be my favourite sneaky little trick for boosting French listening comprehension, especially with beginners. It’s super simple but surprisingly effective. You’re basically asking students to listen carefully and colour in specific items based on what they hear. “Colour the backpack blue,” “The pencil case is red,” that kind of thing.

The magic? They’re absorbing vocabulary and reinforcing their understanding of colours without even realising they’re doing any heavy lifting.

I love using this during themed units—like school supplies—because I can give students an image packed with fun, recognisable objects and then build listening cues around that. It keeps them engaged and gives them something tangible to show off at the end.

If you’re like me and appreciate a good shortcut, I’ve got you: here’s a ready-to-go School-Themed Listen & Colour Bundle with 10 Listen & Colour activities, plus 20 trickier Listen & Draw ones for when you’re ready to level up.

Find Something

Got students that are quick to act but slow to listen? You’re not alone – there’s a fantastic game that’ll have them listening more carefully.

Find Something is precisely what it sounds. You describe something to your students in French and then have them find any object that matches that description. You could start basic by just listing colours, or as you get more advanced, you might have a particular object in mind.

For example, you might tell your students to find something “small and round” or something that “you use to write”. Let them work it out for themselves, putting the description together until they have an idea of what to look for.

Listen and Draw

This French listening activity is a bit similar to Listen and Colour. The difference? Well, we’re not colouring specific items in a particular colour; instead, we’re taking the difficulty up a notch by having them draw certain things. You can even add an extra layer of difficulty by including positional words. “The cat is on the mat” or “The blue car is under the bridge.”

You’ll see how things can get pretty complicated, really putting your students’ knowledge to the test. It works really well as a vocabulary review!

Alternatively, you can do it as a list of instructions or read it like a story. Then, your students can follow along, deducing what to draw and where.

I’ve got a fantastic ready-made resource containing tons of farm-themed cards. You can use these as your starting point, asking the students to colour certain objects in different colours or add elements to the picture.

Listen to Stories

Bring on the nostalgia—French listening comprehension gets a boost when we go old school with books on tape (or CDs, if you’re feeling retro). Even just listening to me read aloud counts!

You can do this as a whole class or set students up to listen on their own. After all, who doesn’t love listening to a good story? Bonus: if you’re teaching reading comprehension strategies, you can sneak those in too—same skills, just through listening.

Need ideas? Check out this blog post on reading sources—some of them will even do the reading for you. Magic.

Listen and Answer

Sensing a theme? Listen and Answer is what it sounds like – read a small story or passage and ask students to answer simple comprehension questions. (This one lets you know who’s really listening!)

I read a short story or passage, and students answer comprehension questions based on what they’ve heard.

What I love about this activity is that it’s already differentiated. There are three levels of oral texts:

• Easy = yes/no questions
• Medium = multiple choice
• Hard = short answer

You get 10 texts per level (yep, 30 total!), so it’s super flexible no matter where your students are.

Want to check it out? Here’s the full resource.

Simon Says…

Simon Says… needs no introduction. The game is borderline ancient – popular with students and teachers since time immemorial. Now, we’re turning it into a French listening activity.

The game is simple: You tell the students to do something in French, always starting your command with the phrase “Simon says…” However, if you tell them to do something without saying the phrase, then the student is out.

Telephone

Telephone is another childhood classic, but it works well as a French listening comprehension exercise. To start, stand in a circle or line. The first person whispers a message in French—usually funny or random—and each person whispers it down the line. Then, the last person says the phrase to the rest of the group.

Cue the laughter as you compare the original message to what it turned into!

Create a New Story… Piece by Piece

The final French listening activity doesn’t really have a name. It’s that game you play when you construct a story person by person.

Here’s how it works: one person starts with one or two words, then the next person adds one or two more—and so on until you’ve built a full (and probably ridiculous) story together. You can go around in a circle or toss a ball to the next storyteller to keep it moving.

The key? You’ve got to listen carefully to what came before so your part makes sense—even if the story is totally silly. It’s all about active listening (and a bit of improv!).

Give these French listening activities a try in your classroom! I’d love to hear what worked for you and any tips you have. Oh, and don’t forget to download the free listening activities—they really are a lifesaver!

Want to check out the resources listed?

All the links above lead to TPT, but the resources are also available on our website. Here are the resources available here for purchase in CAD. Don’t forget you can also buy credits for an additional discount (up to $15 off).